An examination of player agency

[Micah Sweet]

I am not Micah so I can;t speak for them. I can only speak for my own position. I think a lot of people would agree that an AP is thought of as having more constrained agency. But the more I talk to people about sandboxes and agency, the less I think that is a fair characterization (because how someone runs an AP is very important). And I say that as someone who shifted to sandbox out of a frustration with adventure paths during the 2000s. But I don't think adventure paths are all run the same way. And if people are on a path of their own volition, then there isn't an issue with agency at all.

And I don't think the OP and Micah are doing the same thing. The OP is very clearly saying a given style of play might be fun but it has no agency, regardless of what people say or think. There is a tacit accusation in the OP that people are deluding themselves and under the illusion that they have more freedom than they really do. Just given what I have seen Micah say in response to some of my own posts, I am under the impression that Micah isn't that interested in being so antagonistic to another style of play

@pemerton

I am not interested in being antagonistic. I have a clear preference, but I really don't feel one style of play is objectively superior to any other. If I did, I would clearly be calling out in a pejorative way a lot of gamers with different preferences to my own. My wife, for example, who strongly prefers adventure path to sandbox. This is the tone I detected (perhaps erroneously) from the OP's comments. They accept that others may enjoy their "low agency" games (consisting of anything that doesn't suit their definition of agency/how their preferred games are arranged, as far as I can tell), but believe these folks are fooling themselves in thinking players have any agency in their games. This is a sentiment whose belligerence just rubs me the wrong way.

As far as APs, I do believe that the style exhibits a lower level of player agency than some others, including sandbox play and most Narrativist games I know of. From my perspective, if you are expected to follow a story progression to attain a specific goal (as in, that's the game we're playing), and the GM exerts any pressure to keep the players on that progression, through the module, their own notes or otherwise, then player agency is going to be reduced (though not eliminated). That doesn't mean it's an inferior game to mine or anyone else's. It just means what I said it means.

 

[robertsconley]

It was a very frustrating play experience for me. I'm willing to play many types of games... as long as I know what a game will be when I sign up for it, I'm usually just fine. But this was much more of a railroad than I ever would have imagined. Because the GM in question is a good friend and because he suffers from some neurodivergent issues, neither I nor the other players wanted to complain for fear of upsetting him.

I am quoting this out of order because I sympathize with your frustration and experience this myself quite recently in fact. Now, the cause of this was different; more how the group choose to handle their campaigns with this referee. However, the proximate cause was similar, I was there because of an old friend from high school that I recently reconnected with. Go VTTs.

I have! And not very long ago at all... last year, I believe. I did it out of obligation to a friend, who wanted to take a turn GMing. We were playing online, and I think he was so focused on trying to make sure that the combat encounters and the like ran well, that he basically just went from one to the next, while narrating bits of story in between.

I am not trying to pick an argument here. But was this a case of no agency? As opposed to limited agency that wasn't your cup of tea, so to speak, i.e., the only meaningful choices came during combat. Was he instructing the group and you on what to do in combat?

Keep in mind Agency limited to combat doesn't make it any less of an issue.

However, if it had been just about any other circumstance, I'd have either bowed out, or else spoken with the GM to try and address the issues.

A reasonable choice given the social circumstance.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah I don't think Micah and I disagree all that much. I saw a post where Micah said they pretty much agreed with me. And either way, I am not worried if Micah has a slightly different take than I do

IMO no one should be worried that another poster has a different take than their own.

 

[TiQuinn]

No, that's not what he is saying. It is not that the game is untenable... they even acknowledged having plenty of fun with such games themselves. It is not the game that is untenable... it is the argument, in the absence of those elements provided in the OP, that the game supports player agency that are untenable.

I've bolded the relevant bits above that clearly show this.

Why is there a need to make an argument if the point for some people is play games and have fun? Who was proposing this “argument”?

In the very first post, he created a fantasy “other person” with which to argue? They have a term for that, right on the tip of my tongue…can’t quite place it. Oh well, no biggie.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But @chaochou having a slightly different take does worry you?

@chaochou I believe blocked me a while back. I only saw their post because it was the OP, and have no idea if they have further developed it. Most folks who block me have a different take than me.

I know you were responding to @Bedrockgames , but I wanted folks to know that if the OP has posted anymore, I don't know it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I was travelling earlier and not able to reply to many posts. I just skimmed back through the thread and quoted some snippets to respond to.



Storytelling exercises and games are different things to me, for sure. Games have rules. Generally speaking, rules that are expected to matter... that they not be cast aside.

As I've said in the past, and as the OP cited... if you look at almost any other game, it's very easy to see where and how players have agency.



Character autonomy.

I am free to have my character go here, or go there, to do this or do that. Which is almost always all material created by the GM prior to the start of play.



I think this is absolutely what the OP had in mind when talking about wanting one kind of game and getting the other, and bouncing off it hard.

If everyone understands what the game is going to be, and how it's going to work, prior to starting play... then everyone's on board. Agreeing to play an AP style game and then trying to run away from the plot? Yes, that's bad form. So would joining a player driven game and then just waiting around for plot hooks to grab you.



No, I think for player agency, it has to be about what the player does. It's not so much about the content of the fiction as the creation of that content. What binds the participants? When can they create content? To what scope or effect?

That's what players do. So it's best to examine player agency at that level.



Without the rules, you're not really playing a game. This is related to my comment above about in response to the difference (or stated lack thereof) between storytelling exercises and games.

Without rules... who gets to speak when, what are they allowed to say, how do we resolve conflicts... there's little game. And without game, the idea of player agency doesn't even apply.



This is hard to judge solely from a player's perspective. Did the GM elaborate on how he ran the AI? Does this happen to be the adventure module "Gradient Descent"?

If so, I am familiar with it, and although I think that it works per the rules of Mothership, which have a very skilled-play, old-school focus to them... part of Mothership is also that it is a horror game. And horror as a genre is very often about lack or loss of control. That may be very relevant.



Yes, but as I said, there may also be other things they value. And at times, these two things may come into conflict. Let's say someone values immersion and also agency... for many, knowing the rules or understanding the processes or all the factors that may influence a given instance of play is an obstacle to immersion, and so they don't want it to happen.

For those people, I would say they prioritize immersion more than agency. Would you agree with that?



I don't really agree with that sentiment. In some cases, yes, it's as clear as day when you're playing with a biased GM. But in many others, you may just be playing with one with wildly different takes on the rules than you. If the rules allow for such broad interpretation, then conflicts are going to arise.

Look at this discussion... look at many others here on ENW. I don't think anyone here is trying to advocate for capricious GMing so much as everyone just has different opinions about play and what makes for engaging and satisfactory play.



I have! And not very long ago at all... last year, I believe. I did it out of obligation to a friend, who wanted to take a turn GMing. We were playing online, and I think he was so focused on trying to make sure that the combat encounters and the like ran well, that he basically just went from one to the next, while narrating bits of story in between.

It was a very frustrating play experience for me. I'm willing to play many types of games... as long as I know what a game will be when I sign up for it, I'm usually just fine. But this was much more of a railroad than I ever would have imagined. Because the GM in question is a good friend and because he suffers from some neurodivergent issues, neither I nor the other players wanted to complain for fear of upsetting him.

However, if it had been just about any other circumstance, I'd have either bowed out, or else spoken with the GM to try and address the issues.

IMO the only that players do in every RPG is control their characters. Creating content outside your PCs influence is a sometimes food for gamers.

 

[TiQuinn]

So clearly, the OP does say that low-agency RPGing can be fun. (And that is consistent with my experience, mostly in the context of vibrantly-GMed CoC play.)

Clearly he said a lot of things but it’s also clear that there was an implied better approach hence comments like:

What often happens is the breadcrumb trail – endless instructions to go here and do that, and then there and do this, and then being attacked by this thing, and ambushed by that thing. Fetch this, kill that, uhoh there’s a skeleton army on the way. You must destroy it. Fairly soon you don’t need the overt instructions anymore – it’s implicit.

 

[TiQuinn]

But then again this is turning into GM Fiat The Sequel and I’m very much not interested in doing that.

 

[Campbell]

I guess one of the things I would ask those who want agency to include autonomy, instead of player ability to effect change in the shared fiction is how we can get to a point where we as a community can meaningfully discuss the latter without having to write novels? What's the solution to having the conversations we want to have instead of fighting over definitions as a means to fight over expectations?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Part of the point of an opinion paper is to be assertive. To state your thesis and then back it up. To present your case strongly and clearly. That's all that's going on.

As for the quality of the argument the OP puts forth... I think it's a compelling one. But it's up for debate. As I've already said... I'd much rather people argue the points rather than some perceived slight. And yes, that has happened a bit... but not nearly as much as the hand wringing and pearly clutching that's going on.

Do you think you'd feel that way if you didn't already agree with the OP's fundamental point and definition of agency?