D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Micah Sweet]

And that is exactly when you exercised your agency, and thus did not allow the players to exercise theirs.

They have the freedom to visit whatever exhibits in the museum they like. They cannot define new parameters for what constitutes an exhibit, nor can they visit something outside the museum.

Player-authored fiction is not the only kind of agency.

We've been through this.

 

[mamba]

And that is exactly when you exercised your agency, and thus did not allow the players to exercise theirs.

they still have agency, you make it sound like this takes it all away and it might instead be the narrowest railroad of all times

 

[mamba]

What game allows this after play starts?

the narrative ones, see plenty of @pemerton posts, and others

 

[mamba]

Players don’t get to simply look under a random rock to find Excalibur because that wouldn’t follow from the fiction.

it does when they 'remember' hearing that it is resting there and 'recognize' the rock

 

[soviet]

Once again the old canard is trotted out: don't question full GM authority because they are infallible and always have the best interests of the game at heart, but don't allow players any authority because they will immediately jump to the moon or find Excalibur under a bushel.

I want to know what happens when a group switches GMs - does the former GM turned player suddenly become craven and foolish, while the former player turned GM suddenly grows much wiser and generous?

 

[FrogReaver]

Players can invent new Bonds as their existing ones are resolved (whether reaching a conclusion, changing to a new form, or becoming irrelevant/getting repudiated). This is a central part of defining what things matter to the characters, and thus what things will be called into question.

Just so I'm clear. You are saying that midgame inventing Bonds do not need to follow from the fiction? They can introduce people/places/things/specific locations and fiction around those things that have hitherto not even been mentioned in the broadest of terms within the fiction?

I don't know if that's how inventing new bonds midgame in DW works so that's why I'm asking.

Players can (and I personally encourage them to) develop their own Alignment move, which both shapes how that character behaves (as they are rewarded for following that move) and defines the parameters for what sorts of situations, challenges, conflicts, etc. they find worthy of attention.

Is the Alignment move created midgame or at the start of the game?

Players can, after moves like Spout Lore or the Bard's A Port in the Storm move, make statements about their character's past experiences, sources of information, or other relevant details. These are, again, important parameters of the stated kinds.

I think Spout Lore is probably the most controversial and hardest to nail down. Sometimes when I ask about that move it can essentially let the player author a specific tower being nearby. Other times I ask about it everything it does must follow from the fiction AND the DM is still authoring and only asks players some questions. I think we could devote a whole tangent to that one move and still wouldn't get it nailed down. So I'm going to skip it for now.

Similar sorts of moves exist for other classes. The deity options for Clerics. The ancestral weapon and its improvements for Fighters. The lands to which Druids are attuned. The Quest a Paladin sets for herself (a particularly pointed example, since it explicitly involves back and forth between player and GM.)

Perhaps some elaboration on the 'Quest move' for a Paladin would be illuminating. An example of it being used in the game would be helpful I think.

 

[FrogReaver]

the narrative ones, see plenty of @pemerton posts, and others

That's not been my impression.

 

[mamba]

I want to know what happens when a group switches GMs - does the former GM turned player suddenly become craven and foolish, while the former player turned GM suddenly grows much wiser and generous?

this works both ways you know, why would the new GM suddenly deny all agency and put them on the straightest of railroads ever...

 

[pemerton]

You can't just make up anything at all in DW, your choices are limited by the rules of the game. You can't just declare you have an "I win" button.

what I have been repeatedly told in the past is that player action declarations in dungeon world must ‘ follow from the fiction’.

Nothing @EzekielRaiden has posted contradicts either of these points. He said that the DW player gets to (metaphorically) define new parameters for what constitutes an exhibit, after the game starts. That doesn't preclude following from the fiction, nor does it entail anything about "I win" buttons. (I mean, what would an "I win" button even look like in DW?)

 

[Oofta]

Nothing @EzekielRaiden has posted contradicts either of these points. He said that the DW player gets to (metaphorically) define new parameters for what constitutes an exhibit, after the game starts. That doesn't preclude following from the fiction, nor does it entail anything about "I win" buttons. (I mean, what would an "I win" button even look like in DW?)

Did I state anything that contradicts this? @EzekielRaiden stated that players in D&D don't have agency because, unlike DW, they can't decide what's in their destination. I was just pointing out that there are other limitations to agency in DW, that someone can't do whatever they want in that game either.

Players in both games have agency, they just have different limits on that agency.