An examination of player agency

[MGibster]

Rules lay boundaries and structure, but in the end, they serve the players 9includeing the GM), not the other way around.

"The rules were made for man, not man for the rules." Gygax 2:27

Can’t a general rule be introduced for this that the player can understand and rely on?

Good question. You could always just flip a coin giving every action a 50/50 chance of succeeding no matter how nonsensical it might be, but is that a good solution?

I'm not saying we need inviolable rules, but plenty of roleplaying games have inviolable rules without codifying every possible action. Marvel Heroic RP, Blades in the Dark, Apocalypse World are all examples. Like you can build in constrained judgement into your game design so that it can respond to just about any sort of fiction.

The OP defines agency as "the product of inviolable rules which the players know and can rely on to achieve known goals." This is what I was specifically addressing.

Bizarre. Anyone who knows @chaochou's posting history knows that he likes Apocalypse World and Burning Wheel. And also has at least nostalgic fondness for Traveller, RuneQuest and AD&D.

My brain is filled with random Snarf trivia. I can't track all posters here an EnWorld.

 

[pemerton]

My brain is filled with random Snarf trivia. I can't track all posters here an EnWorld.

Sure. But the notion that because someone thinks RPGing with player agency is possible, therefore they should be playing non-RPG boardgames, is still bizarre.

It's not as if variations on GM storytime, or Explore the GM's pre-authored setting, are the only possibilities in RPG play.

 

[Umbran]

The rest of the post essentially says that agency comes from these things, because without them players cannot clearly set and pursue goals within and for play with the expectation they will be able to realize the goals (or at least make an honest effort).

I think folks should, and should be able to, tell me with much more clarity what it is they feel I should be seeking before they tell me where to look for it.

 

[MGibster]

Sure. But the notion that because someone thinks RPGing with player agency is possible, therefore they should be playing non-RPG boardgames, is still bizarre.

It's their definition of agency and the examples they give. They want a game where the GM doesn't really arbitrate.

 

[zakael19]

It's their definition of agency and the examples they give. They want a game where the GM doesn't really arbitrate.

You can run D&D 5e by those rules. You just have to be transparent, and open to a degree of table discussion when unclear resolution moments arise. I believe @prabe runs his 5e in a way that maps well, and all he needed to do was add a little formality around social resolution iirc?

There’s a ton of space where the GM has absolute or final say in FITD / AW etc. But it’s just, open and reliable.

I’ve personally run principled OSE, 5e, and 4e such that I think I met all of the OP’s outlines and did so with explicit intent of maximizing player agency to set and pursue goals within a starting premise.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm not saying we need inviolable rules, but plenty of roleplaying games have inviolable rules without codifying every possible action. Marvel Heroic RP, Blades in the Dark, Apocalypse World are all examples. Like you can build in constrained judgement into your game design so that it can respond to just about any sort of fiction.

Sounds like you just have a preference for games on the Narrativist end of the spectrum.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You can run D&D 5e by those rules. You just have to be transparent, and open to a degree of table discussion when unclear resolution moments arise. I believe @prabe runs his 5e in a way that maps well, and all he needed to do was add a little formality around social resolution iirc?

There’s a ton of space where the GM has absolute or final say in FITD / AW etc. But it’s just, open and reliable.

I’ve personally run principled OSE, 5e, and 4e such that I think I met all of the OP’s outlines and did so with explicit intent of maximizing player agency to set and pursue goals within a starting premise.

What exactly do you mean by "principled"? It sounds loaded, but I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and not make assumptions.

 

[MGibster]

I’ve personally run principled OSE, 5e, and 4e such that I think I met all of the OP’s outlines and did so with explicit intent of maximizing player agency to set and pursue goals within a starting premise.

I don't know what principled means here. I'm really out of my depth here and I should have thought twice before posting in a thread about game theory. I have a great deal of difficulty following discussions about game theory. That's on me.

 

[pemerton]

It's their definition of agency and the examples they give. They want a game where the GM doesn't really arbitrate.

Here's what the OP says:

Agency in games is the product of inviolable rules which the players know and can rely on to achieve known goals.

<snip>

The following would describe a great many games:

• They do not treat rules as inviolable (for the GM)
• There is no reliability in resolution for key elements of gameplay – instead the assumption is the GM can at any time interpose their own agency to resolve situations
• There is an assumption that the GM creates ad-hoc resolution processes – such as ‘I’ve decided what is realistic here’ or ‘I’ve decided on two possible outcomes and will roll a dice’.
• They assume the GM sets goals in secret

<snip>

If player agency matters to you, keep your eyes open for inviolable rules which you know and can rely on to achieve your goals. Watch for GMs with opaque processes, resolution which doesn’t give you any actual say in your character’s outcomes, GMs that expect you to agree to them setting your character’s goals for you.

From this account of agency, we can then ask questions like:

*How, in a RPG, can players establish goals for play? Gygax, in his PHB, gives one account (in the section on Successful Adventures). Luke Crane, in the Burning Wheel rulebook, gives a very different account.

*How are player action declarations, aimed at achieving those goals, to be resolved? Are there ways of doing this that don't just involve the GM interposing their own agency? The classic D&D rules for forcing open doors are one example; Burning Wheel provides a different example.​

There are other examples too, from other RPGs.

And some of the answers will depend on the intended scope and focus of play. Gygax's D&D, for instance, simply has nothing to offer for someone who wants the focus of their RPGing to be around small-scale, emotionally intimate, character interactions; Burning Wheel does. Burning Wheel has little to offer players who want their goals to focus on close "exploration" and overcoming of a GM-mapped-and-keyed puzzle space. Gygax's D&D does, although experience has shown that it is a design that is vulnerable to agency-reducing perturbations: what counts as fair in a classic dungeon is, I think, very sensitive to local group norms and actual prior experiences of play together.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't know what principled means here. I'm really out of my depth here and I should have thought twice before posting in a thread about game theory. I have a great deal of difficulty following discussions about game theory. That's on me.

Me too. I just have a hard time staying away from it, at least until the jargon gets too thick for me.