An examination of player agency

[Bedrockgames]

Upthread you posted this:

Yes, given the whole framing of the post it is flawed. If he wasn't making it to make a broader argument about other styles of play, I don't think people would care, and they would be open because it certainly is something open to discussion and has a degree of subjectivity to it.

I feel that you are trying to capture agency for a particular type of game too, namely, a game that I would probably think is a railroad.

Yes and this is my issue with these kinds of posts. Agency and Railroad are being used expansively paint wide ranging styles of play as being railroads and not allowing for enough player freedom. If people are defining railroad so it includes a very open structure like a sandbox, that seems to be not just a problematic definition but using semantics to win a style debate.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I feel that you are trying to capture agency for a particular type of game too....

I am not. Look at my posts. I was actively avoiding being prescriptive with agency and allowing for the possibility that what I find enhances my agency another person might find hinders it. I said I don't think the styles I have talked about are providing maximal agency for everyone.

 

[pemerton]

If people are defining railroad so it includes a very open structure like a sandbox, that seems to be not just a problematic definition but using semantics to win a style debate.

If you're defining "agency" to try and cover games that I would regard as railroads, and would not touch with a 10' pole for that reason, it seems to me that you are using problematic definitions and semantics to try and win a style debate.

I am not. Look at my posts. I was actively avoiding being prescriptive with agency and allowing for the possibility that what I find enhances my agency another person might find hinders it. I said I don't think the styles I have talked about are providing maximal agency for everyone.

You are actively trying to rob me of the vocabulary to explain why I wouldn't touch various games with a 10' pole.

 

[Bedrockgames]

If you're defining "agency" to try and cover games that I would regard as railroads, and would not touch with a 10' pole for that reason, it seems to me that you are using problematic definitions and semantics to try and win a style debate.

You are actively trying to rob me of the vocabulary to explain why I wouldn't touch various games with a 10' pole.

I don't think there is much either of us can say at this point to persuade the other. Best to just agree to disagree

 

[Bedrockgames]

You are actively trying to rob me of the vocabulary to explain why I wouldn't touch various games with a 10' pole.

No one is robbing you of anything. You are perfectly free to talk about how you think you don't have enough agency in a particular play style. But if you come into a discussion and start defining words like Agency and Railroad to mean things people don't usually use them for, and then tell people they are actually playing railroad and playing games where they have no agency, despite them thinking otherwise, you are going to get pushback. Once you do that, you force everyone to wrestle over your definition of agency because your definition is being used to make it zero sum game. Like I said before, there is more than enough room in the hobby for all these styles. They all have value, they all can offer agency in their own ways. Telling people only your approach gives maximal agency and maximally avoids railroads, while also labeling styles that clearly aren't railroads as such, that is using semantics to win style debates

 

[Micah Sweet]

But... but that's the same thing...

Inviolate suggests that the rules have to followed, that you really can't ignore or change them.

 

[pemerton]

I don't think there is much either of us can say at this point to persuade the other. Best to just agree to disagree

Perhaps you've missed my point: that your perspective, and your attempt to assert control over the terms of discussion, is no more reasonable or accommodating or pluralistic than anyone else's. To me, that seems to provide a reason to reduce the attempt to assert such control, and instead just to explain why you think a player in a game in which the GM makes everything up unconstrained has just as much agency as one in a game who doesn't.

Or, if you don't think that - it's not clear to me from your posts - then you could consider whether you are one of those people who only thinks GMing needs constraining when the GM is bad.

But if you come into a discussion and start defining words like Agency and Railroad to mean things people don't usually use them for, and then tell people they are actually playing railroad and playing games where they have no agency, despite them thinking otherwise, you are going to get pushback.

Exactly! That's why you are getting pushback, having come into a discussion and trying to define "agency" in such a way that it encompasses railroading.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't know what you mean by 'worldbuilding powers'. I also don't know why you think they are inherently in conflict with 'the rules are inviolable'.

I suppose I mean the power to worldbuild, particularly with no regard for a particular played PC's in-world ability to do so. In many games this power is reserved for the GM. If a game doesn't want them to have it, then I guess the players do?

 

[FrogReaver]

Perhaps you've missed my point: that your perspective, and your attempt to assert control over the terms of discussion, is no more reasonable or accommodating or pluralistic than anyone else's. To me, that seems to provide a reason to reduce the attempt to assert such control, and instead just to explain why you think a player in a game in which the GM makes everything up unconstrained has just as much agency as one in a game who doesn't.

Or, if you don't think that - it's not clear to me from your posts - then you could consider whether you are one of those people who only thinks GMing needs constraining when the GM is bad.


Exactly! That's why you are getting pushback, having come into a discussion and trying to define "agency" in such a way that it encompasses railroading.

I see what you are doing. I don’t like it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Perhaps you've missed my point: that your perspective, and your attempt to assert control over the terms of discussion, is no more reasonable or accommodating or pluralistic than anyone else's. To me, that seems to provide a reason to reduce the attempt to assert such control, and instead just to explain why you think a player in a game in which the GM makes everything up unconstrained has just as much agency as one in a game who doesn't.

My view is definitely more pluralistic because I am leaving plenty of space for your view and others. I am just pushing back when it impinges on other peoples very reasonable definitions of agency

Or, if you don't think that - it's not clear to me from your posts - then you could consider whether you are one of those people who only thinks GMing needs constraining when the GM is bad.

I think containing the GM is just a creative choice in design and people should do it if they think it adds to the experience of play. I don't think we need to get ideological about whether it ought to be or not. There are some games where I wouldn't mind some constraint, but largely when I play, I prefer the GM not to be constrained