D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Golroc]

Having given my say on player agency as a general concept, I just realized I forgot to give my own take on player agency. What do I look for in player agency?

For me there are two important parts of agency that I value:

1) Being given the opportunity (by the GM and other players) to make meaningful choices. This can be anything from the very micro where there is more than one path through an old-school dungeon (ie it isn't just a series of purely mechanical checks and puzzles to solve) to the very macro where character actions impact the future of the story or even the game world.

2) Being able to influence what character I play, what kind of adventure/session will take place and what kind of campaign will be run. These aren't related to anything 'in-character' - but I do think it has value if a GM listens to input like "it would be cool to go a metropolis and have some urban-themed adventures" or "I'm tired of stealth playing such a big role, if everyone else is ok with it, could we be given challenges that don't rely so heavily on subterfuge?". Just like it has value to be able to have a big say in the backstory and type of character being played (as this freedom does often come at a cost in effort by the GM or even other players).

There isn't a set level of agency I need to be happy. It would depend on whether it is a campaign or a one-shot, my energy levels at the time, who else is playing, what game/world it is, etc.

I am not very fond of playing in groups that focus very heavily on mechanics and treat RPGs as mechanistic challenge where the GM is an arbiter and not a storyteller. I can play miniature war games, board games and/or video games for that kind of challenge. But on the other hand I do like having random elements and mechanics. It's more fun if dice are involved. GM discretion/power isn't about trust to me. I wouldn't play with a GM whom I couldn't place my trust in (not that expect perfection, but I should be willing and able to give the person authority to run the session/campaign as they see fit). I don't need clearly defined limits as to when rules apply and when they don't. As long as the expectations are aligned among fellow players that we're here to have fun and what we each accept, that's enough for me. We may follow the rules slavishly, or we may not. And it can change according to circumstances. If rules and random rules are overruled too often and/or without good reason it does of course start undermining the fun of having them in the first place. But I don't expect perfection from a GM.

I've played narrative miniature battles where it's perfectly possible to bend/ignore/introduce rules in the name of fun. Choosing an approach when it comes to picking a rule system to use and the amount flexibility to apply when using it, isn't something unique to tabletop RPGs with or without GMs. Gaming is a social activity. Sometimes it's a kind of sport - competitive or friendly - but certainly a contest of sorts. Sometimes it's collective storytelling. For some players the extra-game socialization is the important part and they don't really care much as to how the game itself is run. I am probably quite heavily in the collective storytelling camp. But rules and randomization of outcomes can help produce emergent narratives and add some uncertainty which is missing if everything is left to the agency of GM and players.

Selective lack of agency is an important part of a good RPG experience to me every bit as much as the presence of agency is. And in particular that the agency isn't always given over the GM, but sometimes left to random chance and the rules of the game. As mentioned this has nothing to do with trust for me - but is instead related to how random chance can add something that a human mind just cannot. A different kind of stakes and a different kind of dynamic storytelling.

 

[clearstream]

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.

Amount of agency to do what?

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.

I think what you are saying here (and I do not wish to put words in your mouth, so am happy to be corrected) is that you encountered folk who had (pre)lusory goals that weren't served by GM story hour, and thus apparently felt low agency to enact those other goals in GM story hour. Happily, you were able to diagnose the mismatch and suggest alternatives.

That is not the same as critiquing agency in GM story hour by the goals of those who intentionally engage in GM story hour. The diagnosis doesn't apply to all patients as not all suffer the malady of mismatching goals.

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.

These two sentences are obviously self-contradicting, except via the exit I've outlined above. That is, GM story hour offers "a relatively low degree of player agency" to play something other than GM story hour.

 

[clearstream]

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.

For the first diner, Tiramisu has "too much" coffee. If a second diner said that their pre-desertery goal was to be kept awake in the evening, then they would rightly say that Tiramisu does not have "too much" coffee. If "enough coffee" is an objective critique, then the world has apparently just been broken upon a paradox.

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.

It would be to the point to argue that to remove "fair bumps" and tackling as legitimate plays, would be to cease to play Aussie Rules. High-agency to play soccer requires low-agency to play Aussie rules. If agency is an objective truth, then it has the surprising property of being both high and low.

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.

Based on this and the above, it seems to me we really should be in agreement, and it's puzzling why we are not. If my (pre)lusory goal is to roll dice, then I am right in observing that I will have low (actually no) agency to do that in Amber. That does not in any way prevent Amber from offering another player high-agency to play without rolling dice!

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

Only when conditioned as I've outlined. High agency to play a different game, can amount to low agency to play this game.

 

[FrogReaver]

Yeah, I think we're sliding too far; agency certainly isn't a binary product. There is little to no player agency in Candyland, because players can't meaningfully make any decisions that influence the outcome. Replacing the deck of cards with a draft immediately improves things, but it's still not a particularly high agency game.

The important point here was that agency is contextual, and relies on the goal of play to be evaluated. Candyland is a low interactivity race game; you can more or less directly compare agency in in to something like Flamme Rouge or Formula D, race games that provide significantly more player input on to the events. It's easier to generalize in board and card games in general, because we're just trying to win under a known and clear competitive goal. This discussion (perhaps unsurprisingly) mostly seems to be taking at least two different goals of play as normative, and then evaluating agency against them in various systems and coming to different conclusions.

Unless we proceed from a commonplace of "what is the goal of play?" I don't think we can meaningfully evaluate agency in a comparative way.

Perhaps we should be clearer in our terms? It's reasonable to formulate a game as a product of abridged agency (by limiting our actions down to a system, we constitute the grounds on which the game is played and all that) but there is absolutely a second dimension of relative impact on the goal of play that is also meant. That narrower category of agency within a game, vs. agency as a being playing a game is really more interesting and relevant to the discussion.

You assert here that agency is ‘influence over the outcome’

There’s a subtle but significant difference in that and ‘ability to influence the outcome’ which is what I would call agency.

The first is scalar. The 2nd is binary.

One thing I don’t quite understand - if agency means ‘influence over the outcome’ then why do we need the word agency at all. Because I agree with you about the concept ‘influence over the outcome’. Some games do grant players more ‘influence over the outcome’.

I’d suggest that if we simply all dropped the word agency and used more specific descriptions that we all agree on those concepts - thus, maybe 99% of this discussion is semantics.

 

[FrogReaver]

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

IMO. You can talk about that concept without ever invoking the term agency.

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

I fully agree with the version where I replaced influence for agency. I don’t think you’d find any contention there. Is there anything missing from your concept by exchanging the word influence for the word agency? If so, what is conceptually missing?

 

[pemerton]

Amount of agency to do what?

Here are some posts of mine - #215, #922, #1015, #2954, #3122:

I am talking about the agency of players of a particular sort of game, namely, RPGers. RPGing involves the creation of a shared set of imagined events, people, places, etc, and establishing "what happens next" to some of those people and places.

Agency, in the context of this sort of game, means doing some of that establishing. It is done mostly by saying things, sometimes by writing things. If one participant gets to do all or most of that establishing, then obviously other participants don't have much agency in that game.

Now if someone wants to contend that RPGing involves something different - eg that it is not really about creation of shared fiction at all, and it's really about puzzle solving - then maybe we can talk about player agency from a different perspective. But I haven't seen that take on RPGing from posters in this thread other than, perhaps, hints from @FrogReaver.

Why are the PCs on the City of Brass? Who established that part of the fiction?

There is almost never only one plausible or tenable extrapolation from a given bundle of "truths" about a fiction. The world can be consistent if the GM is not the only one who gets to establish elements of it. I know, because I play RPGs which (i) feature consistent worlds, yet (ii) I am not the only participant who establishes elements of them.

Your games that lay claim to "story" as their core is my games where the aim is to generate a shared fiction. The contrast is with what I have called "puzzle-solving" play - I've got in mind classic dungeon-crawling D&D, and you've pointed out that there are elements of Torchbearer strongly oriented towards that sort of play also.

In puzzle solving play, the agency of players is about solving the puzzle. The GM has to hold things constant in order for the solving to be possible. (There's no simple paradigm here. Is an evolving state that evolves in accordance with a solvable rule sufficiently constant? That will depend on very particular details of a particular group's experience and expectations.)

In "create a fiction"/"lay claim to story as their core" play, the agency of the players is about establishing the fiction: what its about, what its trajectory is, etc. This is what you call an inescapable sting of protagonism. Whoever is doing this is exercising the most important agency in this sort of play.

The important point here was that agency is contextual, and relies on the goal of play to be evaluated.

<snip>

Unless we proceed from a commonplace of "what is the goal of play?" I don't think we can meaningfully evaluate agency in a comparative way.

I and @Manbearcat both have multiple posts in this thread that addresses exactly this point!

Here are some of the most recent:

In games that lay claim to "story" as their core, there is an inescapable siting of protagonism (the motivations that propel play and give rise to story and compel its shape) as the apex expression of agency. "What the hell is the point of all of this (?)" is the most foundational question that play addresses and the answer to that is either PC-centered or setting-centered (including NPCs).

I have a feeling that this part of your post may have been missed. So I thought I'd pull it out for purposes of reiteration.

For me it fits with the contrast I've drawn repeatedly in the thread, for over 100 pages I think, between different goals/orientations in RPGing.

Your games that lay claim to "story" as their core is my games where the aim is to generate a shared fiction. The contrast is with what I have called "puzzle-solving" play - I've got in mind classic dungeon-crawling D&D, and you've pointed out that there are elements of Torchbearer strongly oriented towards that sort of play also.

In puzzle solving play, the agency of players is about solving the puzzle. The GM has to hold things constant in order for the solving to be possible. (There's no simple paradigm here. Is an evolving state that evolves in accordance with a solvable rule sufficiently constant? That will depend on very particular details of a particular group's experience and expectations.)

In "create a fiction"/"lay claim to story as their core" play, the agency of the players is about establishing the fiction: what its about, what its trajectory is, etc. This is what you call an inescapable sting of protagonism. Whoever is doing this is exercising the most important agency in this sort of play.

I think I have been very clear, for the entirety of the thread, that I am referring to the players' agency in respect of establishing the shared fiction.

I think what you are saying here (and I do not wish to put words in your mouth, so am happy to be corrected) is that you encountered folk who had (pre)lusory goals that weren't served by GM story hour, and thus apparently felt low agency to enact those other goals in GM story hour. Happily, you were able to diagnose the mismatch and suggest alternatives.

That is not the same as critiquing agency in GM story hour by the goals of those who intentionally engage in GM story hour. The diagnosis doesn't apply to all patients as not all suffer the malady of mismatching goals.

No one is "critiquing" GM story hour, except to note that in that sort of play the GM has the overwhelming degree of agency in respect of the shared fiction. I mean, that's the whole point of Eero Tuovinen's advice in respect of that particular approach to play!

These two sentences are obviously self-contradicting, except via the exit I've outlined above. That is, GM story hour offers "a relatively low degree of player agency" to play something other than GM story hour.

I am not using the word "agency" to mean "choose". In particular, I'm not using it to mean "choose to play a RPG in some or other fashion."

 

[pemerton]

For the first diner, Tiramisu has "too much" coffee. If a second diner said that their pre-desertery goal was to be kept awake in the evening, then they would rightly say that Tiramisu does not have "too much" coffee. If "enough coffee" is an objective critique, then the world has apparently just been broken upon a paradox.


It would be to the point to argue that to remove "fair bumps" and tackling as legitimate plays, would be to cease to play Aussie Rules. High-agency to play soccer requires low-agency to play Aussie rules. If agency is an objective truth, then it has the surprising property of being both high and low.


Based on this and the above, it seems to me we really should be in agreement, and it's puzzling why we are not. If my (pre)lusory goal is to roll dice, then I am right in observing that I will have low (actually no) agency to do that in Amber. That does not in any way prevent Amber from offering another player high-agency to play without rolling dice!


Only when conditioned as I've outlined. High agency to play a different game, can amount to low agency to play this game.

To reiterate: I am not talking about choice to play a game. I am talking about agency in respect of establishing the shared fiction in the course of playing a RPG. And have been for around 3,000 posts.

 

[FrogReaver]

To reiterate: I am not talking about choice to play a game. I am talking about agency in respect of establishing the shared fiction in the course of playing a RPG. And have been for around 3,000 posts.

Serious question - Why don’t you ever talk about ‘agency in respect of anything else in the course of playing a RPG’?

 

[pemerton]

You assert here that agency is ‘influence over the outcome’
One thing I don’t quite understand - if agency means ‘influence over the outcome’ then why do we need the word agency at all. Because I agree with you about the concept ‘influence over the outcome’. Some games do grant players more ‘influence over the outcome’.

Here is a definition of the word "agency": action or intervention producing a particular effect. Google attributes this to Oxford Languages.

Merriam-Webster gives the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power.

You seem to be asking "Why do we need the word agency to refer to the phenomenon of agency?" Which strike me as an odd question.

IMO. You can talk about that concept without ever invoking the term agency.

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

I fully agree with the version where I replaced influence for agency. I don’t think you’d find any contention there. Is there anything missing from your concept by exchanging the word influence for the word agency? If so, what is conceptually missing?

Naturally enough, substituting rough synonyms will roughly preserve meaning.

The threat topic is What is player agency to you? To me, it is the capacity to participate in establishing the shared fiction. I have been clear about that since at least post 215 (see my reply to @clearstream just upthread).

Here is my post 219. which sits two posts below your post 217:

Well, Google - citing Oxford Languages - tells me that agency means an action or intervention producing a particular effect; a thing or person that acts to produce a particular result.

Merriam-Webster tells me that it means a person or thing through which power is exerted or an end is achieved.

In the context of a game, like a RPG, when we are talking about player agency, the person who acts would be a player, and the result produced or end achieved would be a change to what everyone is imagining together.

If all the interesting and important changes are established by one participant, then as I say the other participants have little agency in respect of the game. That is not a redefinition: it is an application of standard meanings of the term in this particular context.

If the impact of what the player decides that their PC says and does is decided primarily by the GM, then this does not seem to me to be a very significant exercise of agency by the player. They are prompting the GM to produce an effect or result; but they are not producing it directly via their own agency.

I don't understand why you object to me using an ordinary word of English with its ordinary meaning.

 

[pemerton]

Serious question - Why don’t you ever talk about ‘agency in respect of anything else in the course of playing a RPG’?

What do you have in mind?

@Manbearcat and I have raised the idea of agency to solve puzzles in this thread, but no one else seems to have been interested in that discussion.

Others have raised agency to declare actions for one's PC, but as I, @hawkeyefan and @AbdulAlhazred have pointed out, that is common to all RPGs and hence not an interesting point of distinction between them.

I have also talked about the agency of a player to prompt the GM to reveal their (the GM's) ideas about the fiction. That didn't get much uptake as a discussion point.