D&D General What is player agency to you?

[FrogReaver]

Yeah, there seems to be this redefinition of agency to require players adding to the fiction directly for playershaveagency. I disagree. Or there's something I'm missing.

I don't think 'adding to the fiction directly' is the best description for narrative play. (It can be a fairly misleading one IMO).

But I agree that regardless of the precise description - that narrative play is being treated as having a kind of player agency that D&D play doesn't have. That's something I agree with.

It's just I think everyone agrees D&D play is better than narrative play when it comes to certain other things and can even support some play styles that narrative play cannot - and yet for whatever reason those things don't get viewed as agency and I think they should. (To be clear - It's also true that narrative play is better at narrative play type things than D&D is).

To me the kinds of things that @Arilyn mentioned that D&D was good at were all kinds of agency. Some examples from Arilyn's post:
1. Agency of discovering plot hooks
2. Agency of Solving mysteries in a traditional fashion
3. Agency of exploring ruins or a strange dark forest that the GM has created
4. Agency of free role play without the need to be guided by dice rolls, which can be disruptive.
5. Agency of having stretches without the constant pressure and busyness of PbtA games

I challenge anyone to tell me why these things shouldn't be described as Player Agency.

Additionally, do Narrative games support all of these types of Player Agency?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I did not assume, I gave an example for when more options are not better / offering more agency than fewer other options.

You said more options = more agency, I said that depends on several things, at face value I have to disagree

Would you be willing to restate that example or point to the post where you made it? Because, in brief, I'm skeptical that the example shows what you claim it shows.

Barring unusual (read: usually contrived) circumstances, I think it is inarguable that having more valid options could even potentially lead to less agency. Having more worthless options, sure, but it's already been argued plenty that giving worthless options isn't agency to begin with.

 

[Pedantic]

Would you be willing to restate that example or point to the post where you made it? Because, in brief, I'm skeptical that the example shows what you claim it shows.

Barring unusual (read: usually contrived) circumstances, I think it is inarguable that having more valid options could even potentially lead to less agency. Having more worthless options, sure, but it's already been argued plenty that giving worthless options isn't agency to begin with.

There's a local maxima surely? Once you start replicating resulting board states (or trivially different board states) you don't benefit from adding more actions.

At some point you could make an argument on practical availability: how many usefully different states can a player access, and how differentiable are they from each other? If there's too many that lead to individually different outputs, the player may have an effective decrease in agency based on parsing those actions, because too many available choices produce too similar a result.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

To me the kinds of things that @Arilyn mentioned that D&D was good at were all kinds of agency. Some examples from Arilyn's post:
1. Agency of discovering plot hooks
2. Agency of Solving mysteries in a traditional fashion
3. Agency of exploring ruins or a strange dark forest that the GM has created
4. Agency of free role play without the need to be guided by dice rolls, which can be disruptive.
5. Agency of having stretches without the constant pressure and busyness of PbtA games

I challenge anyone to tell me why these things shouldn't be described as Player Agency.

#1, #3, and #5. I'm not even sure how to parse 5 in terms of "agency" at all. You're talking about...a tone? A context? "Pressure and busyness" just doesn't seem to be in any way relevant to the topic of agency. I can only assume I'm missing something from what you're talking about here, since it doesn't seem to have any bearing on "agency" at all.

#1, "discovering plot hooks," is not agency, for the same reason that discovering what lies in the next room of the haunted house ride is not agency. Yes, you are discovering! But you are discovering because the railroad tracks go there, not because you actually made any choices which produced discovery. Also, see below about how initiating action is important.

#3, "exploring [locations] that the GM has created," is not agency. It is certainly an action you can perform. I don't question that in the least! But it is not agency. One of the components of the (philosophical) standard conception of agency is that agency depends on intentionality* and on being initiated by the agent. This is not, and cannot be, true of the thing you describe in #3. What initiates the exploration of the ruins or the strange dark forest is the GM putting it forth, not the players engaging with it. The GM is definitely initiating intentional action, and thus showing agency; the players are not.

*in that some kind of intentional action must be involved, even if some of the resulting effects are not intentional, e.g. "eating expired food" is an intentional act, but "giving yourself food poisoning" is not, even though both descriptions may be valid for the same act.

#4 is something "supported" (rather, more "not interfered with") by literally all systems, because the simpler way to describe it is, "Roleplaying without engaging the rules." Which literally anyone can do, at any point, with any system, forever. Indeed, that's literally how at least DW is supposed to be played. Don't touch the rules, don't do anything involving the rules, unless and until you meet the trigger for a rule. Then do what the rule says, and when you have your answer about how the fiction should change, return to "free role play" as you put it.

#2 is in a weird position. On the one hand, solving mysteries is an umbrella term that involves a wide variety of actions, and can thus be considered to relate to agency. On the other hand, there is no specific action to point to in this; "solve a mystery" is not a deed, but rather a catch-all for a lot of related things. So...if we're being technical, "solving mysteries in a traditional fashion" is not, in itself, capable of showing (or not showing!) agency; it is unrelated. If we're being loose, well, it may or may not be related--we would need to get more specific about the actions involved. Consider that the reader of a whodunnit cannot have agency within the story, but can still "solve" the mystery before the detective presents the evidence, assuming the mystery is well-written. No agency, by definition; yet mystery-solving occurs.

Additionally, do Narrative games support all of these types of Player Agency?

Given I flatly disagree that three of the five are even types of agency in the first place, and am on the fence about one of the remainder, no, it does not support them--because it can't support that which isn't even agency to begin with. #4 is literally how DW (and I assume other PbtA games) should be played. #2 is something of a problem, because it can be parsed in one sense as not about agency because "solve a mystery" is not a specific action one can intentionally perform nor initiate; yet in a different sense, it can be parsed as being an umbrella which contains many actions, and those actions may or may not express agency.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

There's a local maxima surely? Once you start replicating resulting board states (or trivially different board states) you don't benefit from adding more actions.

At some point you could make an argument on practical availability: how many usefully different states can a player access, and how differentiable are they from each other? If there's too many that lead to individually different outputs, the player may have an effective decrease in agency based on parsing those actions, because too many available choices produce too similar a result.

If option A and option B are identical apart from incidentals, they are not actually distinct options. They are simply the same option, restated.

Would you prefer that I had said, "more valid distinct options"? If so, consider the statement so amended.

 

[mamba]

Would you be willing to restate that example or point to the post where you made it? Because, in brief, I'm skeptical that the example shows what you claim it shows.

Barring unusual (read: usually contrived) circumstances, I think it is inarguable that having more valid options could even potentially lead to less agency. Having more worthless options, sure, but it's already been argued plenty that giving worthless options isn't agency to begin with.

I don't think we are disagreeing here either... my point simply was that more options are a meaningless metric without more context

Really? So having only one option means no agency, but having two options is the same as having five?

This makes no sense.

Does filling out a lottery ticket in which the numbers range from 1 to 40 provide less agency than filling out one where the numbers range from 1 to 60?

The number of options does not automatically increase agency. Why are there two or five options, what are these options, who decides what options there are. That to me is far more relevant to agency than whether there are two or five

If my two options are, do you want to attack the enemy now or search for allies first, that is more agency than choosing between five kinds of beer in a tavern.

 

[FrogReaver]

#1, #3, and #5. I'm not even sure how to parse 5 in terms of "agency" at all. You're talking about...a tone? A context? "Pressure and busyness" just doesn't seem to be in any way relevant to the topic of agency. I can only assume I'm missing something from what you're talking about here, since it doesn't seem to have any bearing on "agency" at all.

#1, "discovering plot hooks," is not agency, for the same reason that discovering what lies in the next room of the haunted house ride is not agency. Yes, you are discovering! But you are discovering because the railroad tracks go there, not because you actually made any choices which produced discovery. Also, see below about how initiating action is important.

#3, "exploring [locations] that the GM has created," is not agency. It is certainly an action you can perform. I don't question that in the least! But it is not agency. One of the components of the (philosophical) standard conception of agency is that agency depends on intentionality* and on being initiated by the agent. This is not, and cannot be, true of the thing you describe in #3. What initiates the exploration of the ruins or the strange dark forest is the GM putting it forth, not the players engaging with it. The GM is definitely initiating intentional action, and thus showing agency; the players are not.

*in that some kind of intentional action must be involved, even if some of the resulting effects are not intentional, e.g. "eating expired food" is an intentional act, but "giving yourself food poisoning" is not, even though both descriptions may be valid for the same act.

#4 is something "supported" (rather, more "not interfered with") by literally all systems, because the simpler way to describe it is, "Roleplaying without engaging the rules." Which literally anyone can do, at any point, with any system, forever. Indeed, that's literally how at least DW is supposed to be played. Don't touch the rules, don't do anything involving the rules, unless and until you meet the trigger for a rule. Then do what the rule says, and when you have your answer about how the fiction should change, return to "free role play" as you put it.

#2 is in a weird position. On the one hand, solving mysteries is an umbrella term that involves a wide variety of actions, and can thus be considered to relate to agency. On the other hand, there is no specific action to point to in this; "solve a mystery" is not a deed, but rather a catch-all for a lot of related things. So...if we're being technical, "solving mysteries in a traditional fashion" is not, in itself, capable of showing (or not showing!) agency; it is unrelated. If we're being loose, well, it may or may not be related--we would need to get more specific about the actions involved. Consider that the reader of a whodunnit cannot have agency within the story, but can still "solve" the mystery before the detective presents the evidence, assuming the mystery is well-written. No agency, by definition; yet mystery-solving occurs.


Given I flatly disagree that three of the five are even types of agency in the first place, and am on the fence about one of the remainder, no, it does not support them--because it can't support that which isn't even agency to begin with. #4 is literally how DW (and I assume other PbtA games) should be played. #2 is something of a problem, because it can be parsed in one sense as not about agency because "solve a mystery" is not a specific action one can intentionally perform nor initiate; yet in a different sense, it can be parsed as being an umbrella which contains many actions, and those actions may or may not express agency.

I mean if one assumes ahead of time that everything is a railroad then obviously there is no agency. And before you say you didn't...

#1 Yes, you are discovering! But you are discovering because the railroad tracks go there

#3 One of the components of the (philosophical) standard conception of agency is that agency depends on intentionality* and on being initiated by the agent. This is not, and cannot be, true of the thing you describe in #3. What initiates the exploration of the ruins or the strange dark forest is the GM putting it forth, not the players engaging with it.

Maybe engage with my post without that presumption?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't think we are disagreeing here either... my point simply was that more options are a meaningless metric without more context

You may have noticed almost everyone talks about options with meaning. Choosing lottery numbers is meaningless. All of the options, from the player's perspective, are perfectly identical. By design.

I mean if one assumes ahead of time that everything is a railroad then obviously there is no agency. And before you say you didn't...


Maybe engage with my post without that presumption?

If it isn't railroaded, then there is much, much, much more involved than JUST what the GM prepared. There can be discovery of things the GM didn't prepare. You spoke of GM-prepared content. I stuck to only that, and nothing more. If you wished to speak of GM-prepared content and content developed in response to player actions, that would be a completely different subject. And would, in fact, involve agency!

 

[FrogReaver]

If it isn't railroaded, then there is much, much, much more involved than JUST what the GM prepared.

Seems to me that calling it a D&D game naturally includes all that.

You spoke of GM-prepared content. I stuck to only that, and nothing more. If you wished to speak of GM-prepared content and content developed in response to player actions, that would be a completely different subject. And would, in fact, involve agency!

Again, calling it a D&D game should care for the whole process... framing -> player action -> revealing pieces of ruins/forest -> repeat

I'm still shocked you immediately went to railroad and even more shocked that you tried to blame that on me.

 

[mamba]

You may have noticed almost everyone talks about options with meaning. Choosing lottery numbers is meaningless. All of the options, from the player's perspective, are perfectly identical. By design.

the post I quoted did not, it just said more options = more agency. We had enough discussions here about whether something is meaningful or not, whether not knowing the outcome of a decision reduces agency, etc., so no, there is plenty of talk about other things.

Also, choosing lottery numbers is not meaningless, that is how you win the lottery… yet one more discussion we had here already