D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Snarf Zagyg]

It seems as though the players' reactions might be similar to readers' or viewers' reactions to "it was just a dream" both in terms of how they react and why.

Good analogy. The exact same fiction can be completely ruined if the show tacks on the whole, "It was just a dream." Because for some people, it retroactively invalidates the feeling that they had before ... it makes them feel cheated.

I might start a longer thread about this next week based on the concept of the magician. For whatever reason, there are people that feel a particular trick is ruined when they find out how it works, which is why many magicians (of the non-Penn & Teller variety) take such pains to keep the workings of a trick secret.

 

[Umbran]

If the actual facts of the matter are irrelevant, and the feeling alone is all that matters, why do players care when they find out?

Well, "care" is a feeling too.

Human emotional reactions aren't grounded in logic, and can be idiosyncratic. Different people may care for different reasons.

In perhaps the most basic reason - this qualifies as a violation of expectations, which is known to frequently produce negative emotional reactions, even if the difference from expectation would normally be considered a good thing.

I have one friend who hates surprises (which, at their heart, are violations of expectations), so much so that she once walked out of her own surprise birthday party.

 

[Campbell]

When the same word has multiple meanings, we can take the following approaches:

1. If we both understand what the other means on a conceptual level (which we do) we can simply engage with one another understanding what the other means when the use the word in question (agency).
2. One or both of us can come up with a piece of jargon that specifically means exactly what we are talking about conceptually. I don't mind this approach at all (although some people think it's elitist). Call the sociological definition of agency snarflegobble for all I care.
3. We can continue to use a discussion of the terminology involved as a way to setup ideological ground as to which concepts are up for discussion and what we should care about. This isn't fun or productive.

If someone would please tell me what approach, we should take so everyone can discuss the things they actually want to on a conceptual level instead of engaging in linguistic gymnastics meet I would actually appreciate it.

Everyone in this discussion knows what everyone else means - can we just have a discussion that like proceeds from that understanding instead of trying to tell people what they should care about, what they should expect or what concepts are worthy of discussion?

Why do we always have to do this [redacted] when everyone knows exactly what everyone else is saying? Arguing over definitions is not going to move the needle because it's not going to change what we mean on a conceptual level (which is what should [redacted] matter).

 

[FrogReaver]

When the same word has multiple meanings, we can take the following approaches:

1. If we both understand what the other means on a conceptual level (which we do) we can simply engage with one another understanding what the other means when the use the word in question (agency).
2. One or both of us can come up with a piece of jargon that specifically means exactly what we are talking about conceptually. I don't mind this approach at all (although some people think it's elitist). Call the sociological definition of agency snarflegobble for all I care.
3. We can continue to use a discussion of the terminology involved as a way to setup ideological ground as to which concepts are up for discussion and what we should care about. This isn't fun or productive.

If someone would please tell me what approach, we should take so everyone can discuss the things they actually want to on a conceptual level instead of engaging in linguistic gymnastics meet I would actually appreciate it.

Everyone in this discussion knows what everyone else means - can we just have a discussion that like proceeds from that understanding instead of trying to tell people what they should care about, what they should expect or what concepts are worthy of discussion?

Why do we always have to do this [redacted] when everyone knows exactly what everyone else is saying? Arguing over definitions is not going to move the needle because it's not going to change what we mean on a conceptual level (which is what should [redacted] matter).

IMO, the problem is a bit more complicated because we aren’t just dealing with me and you. We are dealing with about a dozen or so people and getting that many all to agree is hard!

1) conversation with those other posters gets really confusing when you and I do 1.

2) this has been attempted by both sides and people just go back to using the disputed jargon. Like I’ve personally tried to get your side to talk about the concepts without using the term agency. In general they refuse to do so.

3) seems to be where these discussions always go.

Ultimately I’m not sure we really do all know what each other means. I think alot of that is due to lack of specificity. Because there’s been countless times where both sides declare they didn’t say something only to have a past comment trotted out that seems to imply they did.

 

[pointofyou]

With respect, no, they cannot. Kindness, intelligence, and influence are not even well-defined concepts, much less things whose relative values can be assessed objectively.

Each of these are things that one can have a personal opinion about. And maybe multiple people share those opinions. But objective values do not care about our opinions, individually or as a collective.

You really cannot tell if one person is kinder than another?

You really cannot tell if one person is more intelligent than another? You can take that as "better at a given intellectual task" if you want to avoid debating the existence of general intelligence.

You really cannot tell which events in history had greater influence on downstream events than others?

With respect your inability to tell such things does not mean there are not objective differences that can be recognized and assessed and neither does the absence of universally agreed upon units of measure.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I've noticed. One more try.

Mod Note:

This- and a few other passages- really do come across as needlessly confrontational and personal. Use your obvious linguistic skills for good, not evil, and avoid needlessly provocative rhetoric, please.

 

[FrogReaver]

You really cannot tell if one person is kinder than another?

Not in any objective sense. I can tell if I think someone is trying to be kind.

Or they may be using fake kindness to manipulate

They may think what they are doing is kind but may actually be harming the person they are trying to be kind to. ex: giving beer to an alcoholic.

So yea. Kindness isn’t objective, it’s subjective. It’s more like judging best piece of art in an art show than it is like measuring the length of a door.

 

[Oofta]

I have never experienced such issues myself. Everyone I have ever played with has been aware of, and ok with, the GM "making stuff up" at their discretion. I don't consider these hundreds of people low on agency.

If I happened to play with someone who wanted to have an experience where there is no "illusion", I would probably object to that term (I think all RPGs are inherently experential) but respect their preferences and try to find a good way to communicate that we probably don't have compatible RPG playstyles, but that I love playing boardgames, miniature games and video games and perhaps we could find common ground there.

I remember a game a while back where the PCs went totally off the rails. I made up pretty much the entire session on the fly. As we were packing up one of the players was chatting to the other and I overheard "I don't know how he has everything planned out like that!"

I don't think it matters if I make a decision about things a month, a day or a moment before it's presented in play. That doesn't mean I'm pushing people in a specific direction to follow my "story" since I don't have one, it's just that I don't plan sessions as a linear series of events.

 

[Xamnam]

You really cannot tell if one person is kinder than another?

Some folks in your social circle are talking behind your back. Who is kinder? The person who tells you what they are saying so that you can deal with it, or the person who keeps it to themselves so that you're not hurt by the discovery? It entirely depends on the context, and the people involved, and immediately becomes ungeneralizable.

Sure, you compare a person who apologizes for stepping on your foot, and one who does so maliciously, you can categorize those easily. But there are so many instances where the basic idea of kindness can have wildly different forms to the same situation, and to try and say one is definitively 'more' kind than another feels an exercise in futility. With something as personal as the feeling of agency, the comparison holds, to me.

 

[pointofyou]

Not in any objective sense. I can tell if I think someone is trying to be kind.

Or they may be using fake kindness to manipulate

They may think what they are doing is kind but may actually be harming the person they are trying to be kind to. ex: giving beer to an alcoholic.

So yea. Kindness isn’t objective, it’s subjective. It’s more like judging best piece of art in an art show than it is like measuring the length of a door.

Over a long term general-you will likely be able to discern the differences between those things and actual kindness and roughly no one would call the possibilities you listed "kind."