D&D General What is player agency to you?

[AbdulAlhazred]

In what ways does a game that limits action declaration to what the character can believable do/know allow for more agency than a game that allows that and then more?

Here's my conclusion. When you and I talk about agency, we are discussing nothing more nor less than the power of the player to make meaningful decisions (in game/fiction terms). When @FrogReaver uses the term 'agency' it seems to have had attached to it a whole other level of baggage which is more properly, IMHO, allocated to things like agenda and premises, or process of play. I don't utterly reject the idea that all these things are bound up together to a degree, they're all part of 'RPG', but I find that his analysis gets rather muddled at a certain point do to mixing in all these other things and suddenly we get some, to me, very weird and contradictory conclusions. You and I can (as we know) discuss this topic in a fairly productive way, but I don't think that's going to happen here...

 

[Aldarc]

I'm with you. Agency is more inclusive than just in-character action. Whether or not any particular player wants more or different agency, however, is very much a subjective thing, and having the wrong kind can and will damage your experience.

Exactly! I think that it's better when we get away from "more player agency = better" style thinking and move closer to "how can we shape player agency to cultivate the game experiences we want?" style critical questions, IMHO. Because then we can ask more specific questions like "what kind of player agency works best to run a more simulationist sandbox game experience that focuses on player exploration and interaction?"

 

[Micah Sweet]

Exactly! I think that it's better when we get away from "more player agency = better" style thinking and move closer to "how can we shape player agency to cultivate the game experiences we want?" style critical questions, IMHO. Because then we can ask more specific questions like "what kind of player agency works best to run a more simulationist sandbox game experience that focuses on player exploration and interaction?"

I would honestly love that! Otherwise, I really don't see a lot of value to this discussion.

 

[Oofta]

I have not said anything about substracting anything. I'm saying that simply defining player agency purely in terms of in-character thinking and action declarations excludes other forms of players agency in other playstyles and TTRPGs. What part of this do you not understand because I personally don't understand why I have to keep repeating myself?

As far as I know, only a handful of people would distinguish between agency of the person playing the game and player agency.

I understand, I just disagree that it's helpful to any conversation.

 

[bloodtide]

What makes the player believe he can dodge? Generally that's not a thing in D&D.

If there's a successful attack roll, you get hit (barring a specific ability, which I can't think of any at the moment).

My Take: Basically the player wants to cheat and hide behind "Player Agency". It's been a topic in my summer games over the last couple weeks and he is just trying to take advantage of it.

The player thinks they "should" be able to dodge falling objects....though that rule is not in 5E.

As part of this 3rd e-mail.....he did add the complaint: "You take away player agency by having too many spells the players don't know about. We can't play the game (I'm sure he means exploit and cheat here) without knowing all the spell descriptions"

Of course, my response was to laugh. Then tell him my game has 5000+ spells beyond the couple of WotC books. There is no way for a player to know them all.

This is one of my finely crafted homebrew things that keep problem or bad players out of my normal games: as soon as a problem or bad player hears there are spells in the game they don't know about, they will run away from my game never to be seen again.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

More nuance is required.

For exploration it's not sufficient that a player authors fiction - he must author the fiction in specific ways and about specific things. Authoring fiction outside of those specific ways and specific things can/will conflict with the intended purpose of exploration.

For example (starting with baby steps): if a player pre-authors all the details about a town and it's inhabitants, then he literally can't explore it because he already knows what's in that town. He could say his character has never been there and then have his character explore it, but that's not the player exploring the town.


Yes. But not any fictional action can be declared and still be exploration. Some actions preclude exploration. An example: declaring your PC remembers he's been to this location before and knows who and where everything is.

So, in terms of exploration, having played Dungeon World quite a lot where there's intended to be a certain degree of player agency WRT what the story focuses on, the pedigree of the fiction is much more complex than 'player makes up a town'. This is intentional and is a product of good iterative game design, just like the B/X D&D exploration rules are a good intentional product of iterative design.

For instance: players pretty much never author fiction directly, except about their own PC, and then in a very limited fashion. So a GM might ask "where are you right now?" at the start of scene 1 of the first session of play. One of the player's might respond "we are in the market place of Townville at noon on Wednesday, market day!" Now, the GM is going to accept this, but it hardly constrains the nature or state of the town, or even the actual situation the PCs are in. The GM might consult his notes and see that the Fighter is 'Good: Defend those weaker than you' and respond with "You notice what appear to be some town watchmen beating a much smaller person with their truncheons in a nearby alley." Everyone is exploring the setting, the GM is presenting situations that feed off the PC's avowed traits (not yet proven, but asserted on the character sheets). The players assert PC actions in response which refine those avowals and lead to further exploration.

The fighter approaches the alley boldly with the idea of defending the weak. The GM asks him what he does, and he responds "I call out the watchmen and demand that they halt their actions." The GM decides to use Defy Danger +CHA here, as the situation is potentially hazardous and Parley doesn't (yet) seem to apply. The player rolls 10+ and asserts "Jorge sees that one of the watchmen is a guy he warned off last week for trying to extort money from his cousin. I glare at him and he urges the other's to back down, successfully." Now there's a ton of possible directions for things to go, Jorge the Fighter might now Parley (he's got something on one of the watchmen) or the GM could switch to using the 'victim' as a way to put some pressure on things. Maybe the youngster signals the party Thief in Cant, telling him to make a distraction so a brother can bug out. "How does this kid know you're a thief?"

And on and on and on, there's so much exploration going on here! And you can see how the combinations of questions, low myth, ability to describe success (within reason), GM moves altering focus and generating pressure to move the story along, and simple cooperative fiction authoring works really well and produces a feeling of learning and exploring within the milieu. IME this all feels quite natural. Remember, DW is also very insistent on things being described from a character PoV, using character names, etc. at all times. It is all deliberate! If you exactly follow the game's instructions things work REALLY WELL and exploration is very much alive. Obviously, with experience, you can develop additional techniques and do more specific things, but OOTB the whole "everyone at the table with equal agency" does work. As for disputes, DW recommends they be addressed by the table if they arise. IME it is not common and usually GMs are competent to address any issue, much like other types of play.

 

[Aldarc]

As far as I know, only a handful of people would distinguish between agency of the person playing the game and player agency.

I understand, I just disagree that it's helpful to any conversation.

See, I find that distinction IS helpful to this conversation because as it happens this conversation is about player agency.

Not only that, but you would be surprised by how many people understand that player agency is ultimately about the agency of the human player at the table rather than the imagined agency of the character. As far as you know, it's only a handful of people. As far as I know, however, it's far more people than the limited you seem to be conveniently imagining for the purposes of belittling my argument, as this distinction is important for huge swaths of the hobby outside of your idiomatic play preferences.

 

[Mort]

My Take: Basically the player wants to cheat and hide behind "Player Agency". It's been a topic in my summer games over the last couple weeks and he is just trying to take advantage of it.

The player thinks they "should" be able to dodge falling objects....though that rule is not in 5E.

As part of this 3rd e-mail.....he did add the complaint: "You take away player agency by having too many spells the players don't know about. We can't play the game (I'm sure he means exploit and cheat here) without knowing all the spell descriptions"

What a weird complaint. I LIKE encountering stuff I don't know about/haven't seen before. For me that's one of the points of gaming.

Of course, my response was to laugh. Then tell him my game has 5000+ spells beyond the couple of WotC books. There is no way for a player to know them all.

This is one of my finely crafted homebrew things that keep problem or bad players out of my normal games: as soon as a problem or bad player hears there are spells in the game they don't know about, they will run away from my game never to be seen again.

I've never seen players complain/demand that they must know that kind of thing in ANY game D&D or otherwise. That's just foreign to me.

Though if there is a seriously adversarial tone to the sessions, I can see players getting upset there

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Exactly! I think that it's better when we get away from "more player agency = better" style thinking and move closer to "how can we shape player agency to cultivate the game experiences we want?" style critical questions, IMHO. Because then we can ask more specific questions like "what kind of player agency works best to run a more simulationist sandbox game experience that focuses on player exploration and interaction?"

It might help to go to a more 'nuts and bolts' level. I have found that actual discussion of game play, and game design, are really useful to me in terms of illustrating in a concrete way what is involved in improved play experience (which is at least for me the ultimate goal).

 

[Golroc]

Player agency isn't one thing. Every single player will have different expectations on what it is - even if there are of course some very common themes.

- Some players want to feel that there are real stakes - that failure has consequences, and that their actions matter. This doesn't always predicate being able to have a major impact on the direction of the story. Some players can be very ok with a GM that through varies means keeps the story either fully or mostly along the lines planned out in advance - but not be ok with a GM who will not let them fail (by fudging dice-rolls, adding more and more clues until something is figured out, etc.)

- Some players want to be able to impact the story - they want to leave a mark on it. This can be anything from wanting to be a fellow storyteller to the GM, and shaping major parts of the narrative to simply wanting to be able to fork off on one among many paths the GM lays out.

- Some players don't like the GM putting in NPCs and/or events that strongly direct the course of the story. They want to be main drivers of the story, and the spotlight to be on them. They want an out when something is happening and the option to go in a completely different direction.

- Some players want the game to be a kind of simulation, where the GM is an arbiter and mediator, not the primary storyteller. They don't want a pre-planned narrative. An adventure module for this kind of player is a description of places and people, not a narrative outline. If they're reasonable people they understand the GM can't prepare an interesting outcome for every eventuality, but some might not be particularly fussed about dramatic narratives and simply want a sandbox to roam with relatively simple interactions being the focus.

Also, people might not have given much thought to what they consider agency. Some might not even want as much agency as they say they do - or they may like something different than what they think they do. Making those assumptions on the part of someone else is of course a potentially problematic thing to do, depending on your relationship with the person. But for some people challenging their preconceptions is the right thing to do. For others it will ruin everything. Being a good GM is a lot about knowing your players - and being a good player is about knowing your fellow players and your GM. If you're strangers then it might be tough to figure things out. And for GM and players alike it is key to be able compromise and find some common ground.

So, if a player is asking for agency and cannot describe it in any particular detail, you'll have to infer based on what you know about the person. After a session talk to players, and ask how they felt about their agency. It's really the only way to figure out what they want. Everyone is in the game together and it is the responsibility of everyone involved to contribute to making the experience a good one. Reality is seldom this perfect, and dealing with players (or even a GM) who aren't perfectly rational, empathic and altruistic is part of the package. If things simply don't work out and preferences keep clashing, then maybe it is time to make some tough decisions and find more compatible players / GMs. Digressing a bit now, but just want to finish by saying that you can't always give everyone what they want - and that's ok. But thumbs-up for trying.