D&D General What is player agency to you?

[AbdulAlhazred]

So far I've found contemporary neo-trad, narrativist and el-dorado-esque games strongly opinionated on what the game is about in those terms. A fracturing of more generic themes into more specific settings and story ideas.

Well, different game genres and agendas are certainly going to diverge a bit in terms of specific techniques, especially ideas about what is appropriate and how it can be introduced. Neo-trad is HEAVILY GM curated, but its aim is to elucidate character concept as envisaged by the players. That often involves elaborate build systems and/or heavy constraints on action centered on character build or related stuff. Narrativist games tend not to need those constraints, as the GM is aimed at a focus on premise, which is often, but not universally, character traits and related stuff. I mean, you can look at AW vs DW, almost the same mechanics, but there's actually a pretty big distinction in thematics and that does come out in techniques of play. DW entirely lacks the "screw with the players minds" element that is present in AW (such as in the "Barf out apocalyptica" principle of play).

This is how I feel about the driver analogy.

I don't think analogies are the best way to go here at all, though they tend to spring up like weeds.

Agreed, and that's rather the point.


It sometimes seems to be overlooked that swathes of RPGers have been influenced by developments in RPG design, and brought those into their contemporary play. When I speak with friends in other gaming groups, they're not just reiterating what was done 20 years ago. Approaches to RPG have moved forward, and that applies to every mode.

I'm a bit skeptical that trad has changed much! Truthfully, OSR (though I thoroughly don't share its ethos) is at least quite dynamic and 'doing stuff', and it has taken some cues from narrativism and related forms. Trad... I mean, what do we have that's new? BIFTS? I mean, 5e is in some ways a better written game than 3e or 2e, but I'm not convinced it actually 'advanced'. In fact I think it has lost some things, and maybe gained some polish in return. Cypher System perhaps? Meh, haven't played it, but my reading of the material tells me it isn't envisaging any radically new process of play, and a lot of the actual nuts and bolts remind me heavily of stuff I did over 10 years ago with d6 Space.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You cannot deny a CHARACTER agency, or anything else actually.

But it is a weird way to parse things up. Players play games and they take 'actions' within those games. The only logical way to define agency here is "what, within what the game in question allows, can a player do?" There's a corollary which is whether or not it is potentially an 'effective' option, that is one where the player has some amount of information and the move in question bears some relationship to the goals of the game.

I honestly don't know what pretend agency of pretend people has to do with anything, really. In fact @pemerton explicitly made the point, which I cannot but endorse, that 'pretend agency' is a minimal possible requirement for any RPG to exist at all, as otherwise the players would literally be a completely passive audience, and I wouldn't consider them to be 'players' in an 'RPG' at all in that case! So, basically all this talk about 'character agency' has no bearing on anything!

And so does EVERY SINGLE OTHER PLAYER in every RPG ever. We all know this, and we all get to say what our character does, as that is the very most minimal level of participation in an RPG that I know of (I guess writing an adventure for someone else to use might be a lesser form, if you wish I grant that). I don't find it super interesting to talk about these sorts of basic givens as they can't really tell us much about how each of us plays. It's like discussing the fact that runners go around the bases in baseball, sure they do! But what actually means something? How they do it! And in the case of RPGs, that means talking about what players do.

I can't agree with that. It sounds like you're saying that acting outside your PC in some way is required for the player to have any agency at all in an RPG. Is that what you're saying?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, different game genres and agendas are certainly going to diverge a bit in terms of specific techniques, especially ideas about what is appropriate and how it can be introduced. Neo-trad is HEAVILY GM curated, but its aim is to elucidate character concept as envisaged by the players. That often involves elaborate build systems and/or heavy constraints on action centered on character build or related stuff. Narrativist games tend not to need those constraints, as the GM is aimed at a focus on premise, which is often, but not universally, character traits and related stuff. I mean, you can look at AW vs DW, almost the same mechanics, but there's actually a pretty big distinction in thematics and that does come out in techniques of play. DW entirely lacks the "screw with the players minds" element that is present in AW (such as in the "Barf out apocalyptica" principle of play).

I don't think analogies are the best way to go here at all, though they tend to spring up like weeds.

I'm a bit skeptical that trad has changed much! Truthfully, OSR (though I thoroughly don't share its ethos) is at least quite dynamic and 'doing stuff', and it has taken some cues from narrativism and related forms. Trad... I mean, what do we have that's new? BIFTS? I mean, 5e is in some ways a better written game than 3e or 2e, but I'm not convinced it actually 'advanced'. In fact I think it has lost some things, and maybe gained some polish in return. Cypher System perhaps? Meh, haven't played it, but my reading of the material tells me it isn't envisaging any radically new process of play, and a lot of the actual nuts and bolts remind me heavily of stuff I did over 10 years ago with d6 Space.

I'm not convinced that adding narrative elements to a trad game counts as advancement at all, as that is clearly a subjective value judgment.

 

[pemerton]

I can't agree with that. It sounds like you're saying that acting outside your PC in some way is required for the player to have any agency at all in an RPG. Is that what you're saying?

No. The point @AbdulAlhazred is making is that being able to declare actions for one's PC is the baseline for all RPGs, and hence pointing out that a RPG includes it sheds no particular light on the degree of agency enjoyed by players of that RPG.

 

[clearstream]

It's about time that someone who wants to argue, say, that a player in a "GM story hour" game has as much agency as a player in a game of Burning Wheel GMed and played as per Luke Crane's instructions, to actually spell out how that works. Where does this player exercise their agency? What are they influencing or affecting or controlling.

If someone is going to argue that the degree of agency in the two games is in fact the same, or perhaps is not able to be compared, I want to see something more than just metaphor, or a reiteration of what Tuovinen has said, which I've already read and which is not particularly arcane.

Comparing agency across sets of (pre)lusory goals is empty of meaning. That is because for P1 to play the specific game that P1 sets out to play, they must voluntarily give up agency in just the right way to constitute that play. To propose that they could gain more agency to play that way by doing things excluded from that play is nonsensical. I can't gain more agency to play Chess by taking up agency to sprint across open fields for the touchline.

This is not "particularly arcane" and it is not a matter of examples. It proceeds directly from the uncontroversial reasoning that to play a game is to voluntarily accept unnecessary obstacles, where to play different games is to accept different unnecessary obstacles.

Thought on prelusory vs lusory goals may help bring superficially diverse intuitions into alignment

• Prelusory goals include human needs or desires that exist in some form prior to play. I wish for muscular exertion and expression. I wish to create stories.
• Lusory goals must be post-awareness of play. I want to play The Judge in Stonetop. I want to master King defense in Chess. I want to decide the ludic-resolution of premises. Such goals can be specific, detailed and complex, but they're made conscious of the possible play.

What I can obviously meaningfully do is appeal to those who share or I feel ought to share my prelusory goals. I can say something like "playing football requires and encourages muscular exertion and expression, while playing chess will not." That's meaningful even if I know nothing about football and chess. I could advocate for different positions - from goalkeeper to defence to wings to forwards - that demand greater expression of particular facets of muscular exertion and expression. And I could talk about my favoured football codes, in terms of the affordance to the prelusory goal.

Once I have brought the conversation fully into the realm of games of physical exertion and expression, it becomes obviously more tenuous for me to promote say football over tennis on grounds of muscular exertion and expression. It can't possibly help the tennis player to have more agency to kick the ball toward touch. To even suggest it feels like a gauche error. If I set out to argue that footballers are the supreme exemplars of muscular exertion and expression, other athletes would surely dispute my claims.

What I can meaningfully do - and what some have often done here and in other threads - is connect stated (pre)lusory goals with lusory-attitudes and means. Those are not claims that "game X has more agency", they're claims that "game X has more agency to satisfy (pre)lusory goal Y". Or even "were game X to change rule Z, there would be more agency to satisfy (pre)lusory goal Y". Such claims must accept that if other players aren't attempting to satisfy (pre)lusory goal Y, they can't possibly gain "more agency" by switching to game X or changing rule Z.

I said that at the outset, via the analogy of tastes for fruit. And @Pedantic - and @Aldarc if I read their posts correctly - have urged toward a similar (if not identical) view. @Manbearcat I hope this better clarifies that my views are not in hard-contradiction with yours on this point.

 

[clearstream]

I'd like to develop a further the reasoning above. Suits used the term "prelusory goals". What he meant was

The kind of goal at issue, then, is the kind illustrated by crossing a finish line first (but not necessarily fairly), having x number of tricks piled up before you on a bridge table (but not necessarily as a consequence of playing bridge), or getting a golf ball into a cup (but not necessarily by using a golf club). This kind of goal may be described generally as a specific achievable state of affairs. This description is, I believe, no more and no less than is required. By omitting to say how the state of affairs in question is to be brought about, it avoids confusion between this goal and the goal of winning. And because any achievable state of affairs whatever could, with sufficient ingenuity, be made the goal of a game, the description does not include too much.

Although we haven't spoken of it until now, Suits also introduced the term "lusory goals".

In contrast, winning can be described only in terms of the game in which it figures, and winning may accordingly be called the lusory goal of a game.

Suits isn't making quite the same distinction that I am, although my extension of his ideas are roughly right. The alignment I am then thinking of is this:

once a poster has established some set of prelusory goals, they may canvass game texts and debate the virtue of one over the other in meeting those goals; and

once a poster has established some set of lusory goals, they can rightly debate structuring, increasing or decreasing agency within the bounds of the game text or close-family of texts.

I think it is the fluid switching between those modes, and the unfortunate detachment (lost in the thread) or failure to at all times connect goals with claims - making it seem at times that claims that apply to one set of goals are believed to apply to all sets of goals - that has protracted disagreement.

 

[pemerton]

Comparing agency across sets of prelusory goals is empty of meaning. That is because for P1 to play the specific game that P1 sets out to play, they must voluntarily give up agency in just the right way to constitute that play. To propose that they could gain more agency to play that way by doing things excluded from that play is nonsensical.

This claim is simply false.

Upthread the example was given of Candyland. I'm not familiar with that game, but I get the impression it involves about as much player decision-making as Snakes and Ladders.

A person can play Snakes and Ladders, learn (around the age of 5 or so, based on my experience with children) that it involves no player agency, and then decide to play a different game they will find more rewarding. And that comparison of games can be based on any number of considerations, including that a game will be more rewarding if it provides those who play it with more agency.

I can't gain more agency to play Chess by taking up agency to sprint across open fields for the touchline.

But you can decide to play a game that gives players more or less agency than chess. Upthread I explained that one reason I prefer backgammon to chess is precisely because it less demanding on me as a player.

It can't possibly help the tennis player to have more agency to kick the ball toward touch.

But the tennis player can instead choose to play a different game.

You are committing the same fallacy that was common among ordinary language philosophers c 1960, of assuming that because some role or other is constituted by some particular set of expectations of constraints, those expectations or constraints can't be criticised. But they can be. Human are capable of thinking beyond the roles that they occupy, and subjecting the expectations and constraints that constitute those roles to critical examination

In the context of a game, this is particularly easy, because (i) they can propose rules revisions, that would reconstitute the roles on a different basis, or (ii) they can choose to play a different game!

 

[clearstream]

This claim is simply false.

You are mistaken.

Human are capable of thinking beyond the roles that they occupy, and subjecting the expectations and constraints that constitute those roles to critical examination

In the context of a game, this is particularly easy, because (i) they can propose rules revisions, that would reconstitute the roles on a different basis, or (ii) they can choose to play a different game!

Yes. Focus on the grounds on which you would make such critical examination or alternative choice.

 

[pemerton]

Focus on the grounds on which you would make such critical examination or alternative choice.

I have, in several ways: abstractly; by reflecting on my own experience in choosing to join or leave RPG tables; by recalling what others have said to me about tables they have left or joined.

One of the things that is compared is the amount of agency enjoyed in the game or at the table. For instance, those who have found themselves in GM story hour games have noted their relatively low agency. Those who have found themselves in other sorts of games have noted their comparatively greater agency.

These sorts of judgements don't involve supposing that a game could involve higher agency and yet remain GM story hour. They involve observing that GM story hour is constituted by a relatively low degree of player agency.

 

[pemerton]

Suppose that someone said that they don't enjoy tiramisu, because they like to eat deserts in the evening and coffee keeps them awake if they have it too late in the day. It would hardly be to the point to argue that we can't compare the amount of coffee in deserts, because the inclusion of coffee is constitutive of tiramisu.

Or suppose that someone said that they prefer (as a player, or a spectator) soccer to Australian Rules football because the former is comparatively low contact, and they don't enjoy the violence of a full-contact football game. It would not be to the point to argue that it is constitutive of Aussie Rules that it is a high contact sport that involves "fair bumps" and tackling as legitimate play.

Exactly the same is true of RPGing. Someone who really likes dice rolls in their RPGing, for instance, is not making some sort of logical error in declining to play Amber diceless on that ground. As the very name of the RPG tells us, it is a low-dice rolling RPG!, and that is a ground on which it can be compared to other RPGs.

The degree of agency that players enjoy in establishing the shared fiction is another ground on which various RPGs can be compared.