D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Snarf Zagyg]

At some point, all threads devolve into parody.

 

[Oofta]

In this case, they absolutely do.

Thing 1 intentionally only offers A-type features. It offers as many of them as it can, but it only offers those. It intentionally excludes all B-type features; they are simply not available, no matter what.

Thing 2 offers both A-type and B-type features. It offers no fewer A-type features than Thing 1 does. It also offers B-type features. In some cases, these things may combinatorially interact, but at rock bottom, no A-type features are excluded.

In what way can you possibly argue that Thing 1 could offer more features?

We have already recognized and dealt with the "not all choices are agency!" retort. Yes--they need to be distinct, meaningful choices. An infinitude of indistinguishable choices do not add agency, but we are not talking about an infinitude of indistinguishable choices. An infinitude of meaningless choices do not add agency, but we are not talking about an infinitude of meaningless choices. We are talking about the very clear, overt inclusion of a new arena for agency to play out in. How can adding something that is clearly meaningful (since, as @Raiztt has clearly shown, it matters to many players whether those options are in or out!) and something that is clearly distinct (since they clearly see a difference between player-agency and character-agency, and most folks here clearly agree!) in any way fail to provide more agency?

And you are correct. People in narrative games can't just declare whatever they want. The only people who have said otherwise are those criticizing the very existence of narrative games, or claiming that there is absolutely no difference in agency between those games and "trad" games or whatever else. The limits are different--and they are wider. Because player agency =/= character agency--a thing Raiztt values very highly, due to not wanting player agency, not even a whisper of it--and some games include the former without any reduction to the latter.


It is difficult to realize something incorrect, so no, I don't "realize" that.

Gronan's point is that GMs suffer under a terrible burden of players being mean to them, which is ridiculous. GMs, purely by being GMs, are in a self-appointed position of power, authority over others. That power comes with responsibilities. Among them, dealing with the interests of those whom they claim to have power over. If one cannot accept that responsibility, one should not be laying claim to that authority in the first place.

This has nothing to do with me accusing Gronan, or anyone else, of any kind of misbehavior. It is me calling out the idea that the powerful need to be shielded from the criticism of those over whom they claim power.

It's misleading at best while also being something that cannot be truly quantified that just because players in different games have different option for expressing agency that they automatically have more agency. So no, other people don't have to agree with your obvious "truth".

A D&D character has a lot more decision points in the build and options of what they can do in games like DW. BitD abstracts inventory but has limits so a player can't pull out a MacGuffin that saves the day like my players do every once in a while with something I forgot they even had. It's impossible to determine across the board who has more agency, just like elevating agency to this gold standard of what makes a superior game is bogus.

But yeah, the poor put upon players doomed to suffer under the thumb of the autocratic despot DM. I've had bad DMs and left their games because of it. but I've never encountered the autocrat DM lording their power over players after decades of play. It's probably because I don't want to play a narrative style game, it just wouldn't work for me. Same goes for most of the people I play with. I prefer having a world I can explore and discover while focusing on my character. If that means the DM controls the world outside of my PC? Awesome! I'm excited to see what they came up with.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It's probably because I don't want to play a narrative style game, it just wouldn't work for me. Same goes for most of the people I play with. I prefer having a world I can explore and discover while focusing on my character.

Whereas to my eyes, those are literally exactly contradictory. A game that totally eschews "narrative style" would be one devoid of a world to explore or discover, and the only "character" I could focus on would be one dictated to me. I would be reduced to nothing but a witness for someone else's unpublished novel.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Whereas to my eyes, those are literally exactly contradictory. A game that totally eschews "narrative style" would be one devoid of a world to explore or discover, and the only "character" I could focus on would be one dictated to me. I would be reduced to nothing but a witness for someone else's unpublished novel.

How is this statement not insulting to fans of non-narrative games?

 

[Oofta]

Whereas to my eyes, those are literally exactly contradictory. A game that totally eschews "narrative style" would be one devoid of a world to explore or discover, and the only "character" I could focus on would be one dictated to me. I would be reduced to nothing but a witness for someone else's unpublished novel.

What game are you describing? Because I have never seen nor heard of any D&D game where the character was "dictated" to a player. I have yet to play in a game where I felt like it was an unpublished novel, that's just not how it works. Meanwhile I have tried shared worlds and they ended up being either bland and generic or had no real surprises or discovery unless there were really distinct boundaries.

It's one thing to like narrative games, but the hyperbole about the drawbacks of D&D are extreme.

 

[Maxperson]

At some point, all threads devolve into parody.

Parody. Two Ds. D&D!

 

[mamba]

@clearstream @mamba @Micah Sweet @CreamCloud0 @Snarf Zagyg @Oofta

Are we all in agreement that ‘Narrative Games’ like Powered by the Apocalypse or Blades in the Dark can produce rich, coherent, vibrant, verisimilitudinous fiction in RPGing via less reliance on GM authorship and curation when compared to th GM authorship and curation of D&D?

Sure, I am not even disagreeing with the player having more agency in them. That agency comes with a price however, and I rather not pay it and keep my traditional game. Maybe it is just me, but I am not really interested in discovering my character's backstory or have the world revolve around them. The focus of these games has no appeal to me.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm somewhat baffled at the focus on systems and philosophies, and whether one or the other is or is not good at this or that. I've always found the main determining factors for how good of an experience a role-playing session is are the people involved. Their chemistry, their skills, their expectations, their effort, etc. Some people will be able to leverage a certain system and/or philosophy - some will be hindered.

I know it might seem overly relativist - even nihilistic - to simply dismiss the importance of systems and philosophies, in the manner I'm doing. But I actually think the people involved are so much more important. Even something as banal as enthusiasm for a certain system can matter tremendously. Does this means system is irrelevant? No, because learning more about out what systems match what people under what circumstances has great value. But normative judgements on the merits of specific system or approach fall very short, I think.

To me, a conflict related to player agency is a conflict primarily related to the people involved and their expectations and interactions. Solving such a conflict is a social challenge, not a challenge of philosophy or game systems. Being aware and informed about the potential reasons for a conflict are important, so I'm not saying discussing what player agency is, is irrelevant. But I am saying that the knowledge gained is merely a tool to be used when resolving a likely mostly social and interpersonal challenge.

OK, so we get down to it, @FrogReaver makes it clear that the consensus is that narrativist games (thus a class of system and its attendant culture of play) produces something qualitatively different than other types of RPGs, and your instant response is "well, none of that matters anyway." Yeah, its telling.

 

[Maxperson]

With great power comes great responsibility.

Yep. I've said as much in almost every thread the subject has come up in.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

No, you are still players exercising your agency in an RPG. That's the one agency in question. You just prefer to have that agency limited to what your character can do or say.

That's really it. It's that simple.

Having agency limited isn't inherently bad. You're literally describing above how such limits enhance your enjoyment, and provide the experience you want. But people somehow see it as bad, and so they're fighting the simple explanation.

It is definitely not bad. I have just seen, at certain times and places, a bunch of misrepresentation and/or misapprehension of certain things which I found to generate inaccurate assessments of how things worked. What's weird is, we all often get to these moments deep in some thread like this one where everyone seems to momentarily settle their differences, but I hear the same misapprehensions again in another thread a week later.