D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Oofta]

Do you think Bob would say to Sue that she has as much agency as he does?

I mean, you’re pointing out that they have different levels of agency. I don’t know how this is in any way a disagreement.

I'm saying that it's completely subjective. Bob would say it's a high agency campaign, Sue would not.

 

[Manbearcat]

Seriously ENWorld? We’re going to (selectively of course) handwring from dusk till dawn about OMGjargon <gasp>, while we simultaneously jump feet first into the WE CAN’T DECISIVELY TALK ABOUT TTRPGS BECAUSE KINDNESS CAN’T BE QUANTIFIED pool.

Meanwhile, everyone here comfortably, functionally, and decisively makes decisions about social cohorts, bridges crossed, traffic intersections navigated, food consumed, and technology deployed without a p-value in sight.

There aren’t enough pages left in this thread to fill with Godzilla Facepalms.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'm saying that it's completely subjective. Bob would say it's a high agency campaign, Sue would not.

What would Bob say about Sue’s experience?

 

[Cadence]

I'm saying that it's completely subjective. Bob would say it's a high agency campaign, Sue would not.

It feels like whether the campaign or game is high/low agency is subjective. But coyle Bob and Sue both agree she didn't experience much agency and he did? Are there campaigns or games where most players would agree about how it felt relative to other games (and some where there would be nothing like a consensus?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I would never stochastic ogre when the players have efforted a decision - that seems awful.

If they pick a road where they didn't investigate what was down it, I might pop the ogre in either way. (I might have you run into the mad hermit in any of several hexes that are possivle instead of rolling where he's at, unless they had looked into it). If I want them to get a hint and they aren't trying to avoid getting hints I'll have the hint go ing incident happen wherever they are. Those, to me, don't seem awful - but I should let the players know that happens sometimes in session 0 because sometimes folks hate that and should find a different game.

Plenty of GMs on this very forum have directly advocated such things though. The "haunted house that shows up regardless of which path you take" example, for instance, because the GM prepared a thing and doesn't want that prep to go to waste.

It's true that history, sociology etc cannot be mathematised. (Which is what units of measurement means.)

That doesn't mean they are subjective.

There's no mathematical proposition that expresses the difference of influence that I and the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia enjoy over the prevailing interest rate in the country. That doesn't mean there is nothing to be said about which of us enjoys greater influence in that respect!

As a student of the STEM fields, it is continuously infuriating the degree to which fellow STEM people dismiss, discount, or deride non-mathematical analysis. Like...these are, to a person, intelligent, engaged people who genuinely wish to have serious conversations about worthwhile subjects. Yet they are, half the time, completely incapable of believing that it is possible to have a discussion about a topic in any evaluative sense without specifically using measuring and counting to do it. (Ironically, for some reason, amongst the "hard" sciences it is always either the biologists or my own tribe, the physicists; the chemists somehow avoid this quite well.)

Seriously ENWorld? We’re going to (selectively of course) handwring from dusk till dawn about OMGjargon <gasp>, while we simultaneously jump feet first into the WE CAN’T DECISIVELY TALK ABOUT TTRPGS BECAUSE KINDNESS CAN’T BE QUANTIFIED pool.

Meanwhile, everyone here comfortably, functionally, and decisively makes decisions about social cohorts, bridges crossed, traffic intersections navigated, food consumed, and technology deployed without a p-value in sight.

There aren’t enough pages left in this thread to fill with Godzilla Facepalms.

See above. The fact that evaluation without mathematical structure occurs all the time is apparently quite lost on some folks. I to this day do not know why or how. The aforementioned STEM-field acquaintances would often even get testy (sometimes even unpleasant!) if you ever tried to assert that there were other ways of obtaining truths besides measuring and counting.

The Empirical Project definitely has enormous advantages, but this particular disadvantage is quite vexing.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think a hurdle is that in a lot of discussions involving comparing games, the various terms are often jargon arising from someone trying to make their favored game sound better and the other game worse that has aquired a connotation, or something with an obvious positive/negative connotation in general usage, or something even more blatantly picked as an insult. (See, for example the discussion at https://www.enworld.org/threads/jargon-revisited-why-jargon-is-often-bad-for-discussing-rpgs.699397/ for a bit more ).

When a thread comes up about a term that should be neutral, it feels like tons of people are already primed to find an insult because of all of the other threads. Which isn't helped when some of those who are known to favor one type of game vociferously (is that a majority of ENWorld regulars) are in the thread and others in it just use the opportunity for snark. Let alone when someone is intentionally trying to use the term to vindicate their chosen game and put down the others.

:-(

I object to the use of the word 'jargon', it's derogatory and inaccurate. TERMINOLOGY is not a bad thing, it's vital to actual discussion, and while I don't approve of it's misuse, I think the thread you linked here stinks of bad faith.

 

[Oofta]

It feels like whether the campaign or game is high/low agency is subjective. But coyle Bob and Sue both agree she didn't experience much agency and he did? Are there campaigns or games where most players would agree about how it felt relative to other games (and some where there would be nothing like a consensus?

If they chat about it they could relay their impression. But you can't say whether the campaign is high agency or low because there is no way to objectively measure it.

 

[Campbell]

@Oofta

Does Sue have as much as Bob of a capacity to influence the outcome of game events if she actively attempted to do so? If so, they have similar levels of the sociological definition of agency no matter how they feel about the content of the game. Desires do not determine how consistent the fiction is, how much capacity players have to exert their will over the game's setting or how difficult adventure content is. We may have different subjective assessments of these things, but our desires do not make something true or not.

A linear play experience is still a linear play experience no matter how much freedom I feel I have. Not being aware dice have been fudged does not mean they have not. So on and so on.

Our assessments may differ, but my expectations and yours do not change the fundamental nature of play.

If a blue-collar worker who cannot afford to go on job interviews to get a better job feels like he has more self-determination and control over their life than someone who can choose to attend various elite universities and pursue any career they wish with a trust fund that does not mean they actually do.

 

[hawkeyefan]

If they chat about it they could relay their impression. But you can't say whether the campaign is high agency or low because there is no way to objectively measure it.

They can indeed compare their experiences, and both of them would agree that Bob had more agency than Sue.

I don’t think anyone would disagree with that.

 

[Cadence]

Plenty of GMs on this very forum have directly advocated such things though. The "haunted house that shows up regardless of which path you take" example, for instance, because the GM prepared a thing and doesn't want that prep to go to waste.

If they went against the players intentionally trying to pick a boring route, or went against the players trying to find out information in advance, or something like that, then that seems bad to me.