D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Maxperson]

I don't either, but I expect that the designers assume most people are going to follow the path. They're intended as complete, out-of-the-box adventures.

I think most people probably do, mostly because of the social contract. However, that doesn't mean that they follow uncreatively. Getting those 200 mercenaries to help out still follows the path.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think most people probably do, mostly because of the social contract. However, that doesn't mean that they follow uncreatively. Getting those 200 mercenaries to help out still follows the path.

I'm loving this "hire a small army idea", by the way. Now that's a use for gold!

 

[Maxperson]

I'm loving this "hire a small army idea", by the way. Now that's a use for gold!

There are tons of uses for gold if you have proactive players. They will find a way!

 

[pemerton]

If that's how you see it, fair enough. It doesn't look that way to me though. It looks like you're describing times when you've "slummed it" from your point of view, engaging in play you saw as inferior for whatever reason and tried to make the best of it. Just my point of view, and I don't intend it as hurtful.

It's not hurtful. It just smacks of projection.

 

[Mort]

I think most people probably do, mostly because of the social contract. However, that doesn't mean that they follow uncreatively. Getting those 200 mercenaries to help out still follows the path.

It's not JUST the social contract. Adventure paths do all sorts of things to encourage "staying on the path..."

For example there is generally a finite amount of gold provided - good luck getting enough for the 200 mercenaries solution.

Or the simple fact that time tends to be a factor (time clocks) so there generally isn't enough time to divert for the creative solution.

Sure an experienced and willing DM can modify things as they see fit to allow for more freedom etc. But we're talking general and default here. And the general default is pushing the player from the beginning to the end of the adventure.

I'm not even arguing against it (other than the fact that most of the ones I've seen are, lackluster and repetitive. - But that's a different complaint for a different thread) just pointing out that the norm (that I've seen) is for adventure paths to push a pre generated story onto the players.

 

[hawkeyefan]

For sure. I'm not saying that there are not differences or that many of those were not significant. I'm saying that those differences really didn't shift how people ran the game as you note for you and your group.

Well my group was playing 2e. We just used some things from 1e (primarily the assassin class). We managed, but there were clearly different system expectations. The game wasn’t really backward compatible.

There really isn't much difference between DMing THAC0 as opposed to the 1e charts. Or DMing specialist wizards or specialty priests instead of clerics and magic users.

Those differences aren’t really what I had in mind. It’s very clear from the sections on running the game and Dragon articles at the time and published adventures, that the game shifted significantly from site-based scenarios toward story-based scenarios.

Is there some reason you can't just exit the series in the middle somewhere and go seek out the Isle of Dread or something? Dragonlance was designed differently, but I didn't see any other modules really copy the method identically. You could find linear stuff, but it wasn't really a railroad in the way Dragonlance was.

“Leaving the Dragonlance series and finding the Isle of Dread” isn’t always an option, no. It requires that the DM has alternate material to provide. It implies the players have significantly more choice than what was typical at the time… that they can decide there is an Isle of Dread to visit.

Running a published module was largely about removing the need by the DM to prepare material for play. Instead, they can run the material from the module. So that’s typically what they were going to do. Were there exceptions? Of course. Does that mean that it wasn’t a super popular way to play? Of course not.

If it's so predominant, why have I never seen it with the many DMs I've observed and played under? You'd think I'd seen it at least once or a dozen times by now.

I would say that if you haven’t seen it, you’re not looking. It’s everywhere. The published adventures for 5e. Adventure Paths for Pathfinder. Hundreds of Actual Plays on youtube. Critical Role.

It’s everywhere. The game is about a predetermined scenario. The story is about a group of heroes who need to kill Strahd. Or a group of heroes who need to save Elturel from Hell. And so on.

Clearly I care. Words mean something. They don't exist to be redefined willy nilly.

It wasn’t redefined willy-nilly. It’s from a widely acknowledged essay that is commonly referenced in RPG discussion and analysis. One could say that you’re the one trying to redefine the term.

The problem I have with it is that it's NOT linear. It's a railroad and railroad is not the predominant state of play. If it were merely linear play I'd still disagree that it was predominant, but I wouldn't really have an issue with it outside of that.

Trad play isn’t necessarily a railroad in the sense that you mean. But it does tend to be linear, for sure. There are events that will happen in some sequence. Like chapters in an adventure module… or parts of an adventure path.

I don't need an example of an official 5e adventure, because I've done it with a long term adventure that I created. There's no difference between mine and theirs other than who made it.

Well I would say there is a difference because I have bo way of knowing what your home game is like. Is it similar to an adventure path? You seem to be insisting that it is. In which case, using your game as a starting point doesn’t seem to address the question.

If your game is like an adventure path, then why insist it’s not?

Several years ago instead of the typical method we use to figure out the theme of the next campaign,

What’s the typical method?

the players came to me and asked me to just make it up. So I did.

Made what up? Aren’t all campaigns made up? I don’t follow what you’re describing here. Do you mean “the setting” or “the adventure” or something else?

When it started they decided that they didn't particularly care for that theme and told me that their characters were going to head south and become pirates. So that's what they did.

Was this something that already existed in the setting? Did you have to specifically prepare material because of this decision? If so, what did you prepare? What did the players do?

The entire thing I had planned out still happened over time, but they just heard about it through rumors and having it occasionally touch their play a bit since it was widespread and it couldn't be avoided entirely, but it wasn't the focus of their play and they were fine with it touching their play occasionally because of that.

What was it that you had planned out? It sounds like a story… that it played out over time. How did you determine how things went with it without the players involved? How did it continue to show up? Why did you still want those events to matter?

It’s all very vague, so it’s hard to understand what you did, or how anything changed when the players didn’t bite the initial premise.

 

[Manbearcat]

Because people want different things. The family that would rather participate has less agency when watching. But not the ones who chose to watch. That was my whole point - people are not "low agency" purely because they don't choose one over the other.

Because...

I have full agency to buy a ticket and go to the game or sit back at home and watch it on TV. If I'm at the game I have agency to buy what I want, when I want it. Go to the bathroom when I have to go, or waggle my foot quickly for an hour waiting for the 7th inning stretch. I can have a deep conversation with the friend next to me and only half pay attention to the game, or I can not say much of anything and watch the game intently. And more.

All of those things have a significant impact on how the game turns out for me. I have a ton of agency, even if I'm not an active player. You see, my part in the game is different than the part of say the third baseman or pitcher, but it's still a part that I am playing and experiencing. And I have a lot of choices on how it turns out for me.

Golroc, Max...

I mean...come on. What are we even doing here at this point? This is like some kind of crazy agency pea and shell game or something.

Yes, we can develop a menu of the most atomized, most irrelevant, most peripheral "agency coefficients" to any activity concievable within the universe...stack them...and then pretend that somehow, agency is all the same or even tilted in favor of this list of irrelevant, atomized, peripheral nothinburger list of things!

Yes, if we (a) detach anything resembling a unifying process and goal of experience and then (b) utterly atomize all related undertakings and incorporate all manner of irrelevant, peripheral activities (why don't we include the agency to breathe every 2 seconds vs 5...or the agency to sort the almonds in our trailmix vs the cranberries!)...then yes, in that WTF case...no concept of "higher or lower agency" can be evaluated. But at this point...what_are_we_even_doing?

There is no way this conversation can take place outside of ENWorld. Humans in meatspace just won't tolerate this kind of whatever-it-is-we're-trying-to-do-here.

EDIT: If we're talking about agency as it pertains to sport, we're talking about the capacity to impact the gamestate and achieve the win condition. We aren't talking about peripheral, atomized activities that have nothing to do with this. So yes, spectators have lower agency than participants, and yes, parents/guardians watching their children/wards play is the exemplar here. A parent having the agency to chew their nails and shout "COME ON JIMMY" vs engage in the wave is utterly irrelevant to agency as it pertains to sport. Bringing in another kind of agency is just a pea and shell game. And if you try to have this weirdly contorting, pivoting conversation with a human being outside of this arena, it absolutely won't work.

 

[bloodtide]

No idea, but I'm sure it happens. Also, the important aspect is not whether it DOES happen, but rather that it CAN happen. If it can happen then it's not a railroad and therefore not the Hickman Revolution as I've seen it described in this thread.

There is a bit of Metagame here. When the DM has to buy the module and other gaming materials AND then put time and effort into preparation : Then yes the expectation that the players will run through and finish the module.

It's not too common most players understand the above and are willing to finish a module or whatever. It's only about 20% that stand up and yell and scream that they MUST be able to toss anything off the table on a whim, because they say so. And, a large portion of that percent, are just the players that hate GM in general or only pretend to play RPG only to ruin fun for other people.

t's only if the DM is forcing the path that HE wants done and the story that HE wants to happen, that will wander it what @pemerton is describing, and I really don't think that happens more often than very rarely.

Well, with RPGs having the GM have all the power....there will always be players that 'fight that power'. There is always nitpicky things: the players think the orc guards "must" be asleep and the DM thinks the guard are awake and aware. The real problem starts when the player sets their mind on going far out on a tangent, almost always as a direct attack against the DM.

 

[Campbell]

Here's the way I look at agency overall:

I think it can basically be broken down into 3 components.

1. Autonomy: The ability to determine the goals your character pursues and the actions they take in pursuit of those goals.
2. Impact: The ability to bring about irrevocable change to the setting as a result of the actions your character takes (without it being essentially given to you). Success must be earned / taken.
3. Content/Thematic Influence: Your ability as a player to influence the content and/or stakes of the setting and scenarios that will be played out at the table.

I hope we can all agree that there are various levels and tolerances of all three that will play out from game to game and will be influenced by both game design and GMing technique. Whether or not you think an aggregate like score of overall agency here is helpful I do think you can talk about it in those terms, although it's likely more useful to address individual dimensions.

When it comes to the definitions of agency we tend to rely on I think we have a tendency in our hobby to basically use how many of these dimensions to include as a way to stipulate what it is reasonable to expect. Anyone expecting more than the included dimension (Impact when Autonomy is the expectation) tends to get labeled as an entitled malcontent. Sometimes we also decide which dimensions to include to undermine the value of dimensions we do not care for ourselves as a way to say that play that is concerned with a high level of player influence over the content of scenario design basically brings nothing new to table.

On the other side of it some us (myself included at one point) can forget that not everyone personally values these dimensions in the same way.

I don't think any level of desire or tolerance for these dimensions of agency is wrong and all should be respected. I do think acting is if one of these dimensions of agency we do not care for or want is not actual agency it can come across as denying the value of that dimension globally if not done with ameliorating language (which it almost never is).

 

[niklinna]

I don't think any level of desire or tolerance for these dimensions of agency is wrong and all should be respected. I do think acting is if one of these dimensions of agency we do not care for or want is not actual agency it can come across as denying the value of that dimension globally if not done with ameliorating language (which it almost never is).

It might even come across as condescending and/or insulting.

Anyhow I am done with this thread.