D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[AlViking]

To me, it seems that you and some other posters are the ones fussing around definitions. I am talking about an actual phenomenon.

When we look at a game, and how it is played - a board game, a card game, a RPG - we can investigate how much control a player of the game has over the way the game unfolds. In snakes and ladders, a player has none. In chess, a skilled player has lots. In bridge, a skilled player has quite a bit, but their control is subject to the hands that they and their partner are dealt.

In a RPG, the unfolding of the game consists in the establishment and development of a shared fiction. In a conventional RPG, the participants occupy asymmetric roles - GM and player - which gives them different moves with which to influence the game. The GM has a special responsibility for setting, framing and (some) consequences; the player has a special responsibility for what one particular character in the fiction does.

We can then investigate how those roles are established, what rules and principles govern them, and from that we can identify how much control the different participant roles have over the way the game unfolds.

I don't know when I first saw the phrase "player agency" used on these boards, but to me it seems to be getting at the idea I've just set out: how much control does a RPG participant, who is in the player rather than the GM role, have over the way the game - which is to say, the shared fiction - unfolds? And that is what I am talking about.

If you want to forbid me from describing that as player agency, OK, whatever - tell me what term I'm allowed to use, and I'll use that. Quibbling over the word doesn't make the phenomenon disappear, or lose its importance to me.

We're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one, I've given my reasons multiple times now. How the agency of the player is expressed varies from game to game, but different does not equate to more or less. It's just different.

 

[pemerton]

So, to be clear, you feel that a typical Actual Play and the original Dragonlance modules inherently offer high amounts of player agency?

Well, @Maxperson appears to think that there is no difference, in degrees of agency, between a living world sandbox and an AP:

I've already said as much directly to you in post #6,111, so I'm not sure why you are asking me again. The only difference is that in a linear game, the players sign on to go through the AP and they exercise their agency within that social contract. In a sandbox game that particular social contract isn't there. In both, though, the players have full control over what their characters say and do.

 

[pemerton]

If a player can't do something because they failed a "steel" roll the player has zero agency. Full stop.

This is like saying a bridge player lacks agency because they have to follow suit; or a chess player lacks agency because they are moving a piece that is a not a knight, and hence find that the position of other pieces blocks the move they would really like to make.

 

[pemerton]

I don't think this analogy works because you're talking about two different ways to play the same game, rather than two different games.

I don't understand. What are the two different ways to play the same game? And what are the two different games?

 

[pemerton]

@pemerton

Is there a reason why you're refusing to answer my question?

I have read pemerton's posts multiple times. He has, on multiple occasions, refused to say whether or not an argument/conversation re: mending armor was made via roleplay or via rolling the dice.

Therefore, we can only assume that the examples given actually were banal and made with nothing more than rolling dice.

I have answered. Multiple times, over probably dozens of posts by now, with reference to events of actual play, actual play write-ups, and the rules of the game ("Speaking the part"). You don't seem very interested in my answers. though.

 

[pemerton]

I'm defaulting to the idea presented in nearly every game I've ever read, including bits you've posted about Burning Wheel: Don't have players roll for trivial things.

There is no such rule in Burning Wheel, and I've not posted any such rule.

 

[pemerton]

They know they need to collect blood at some point, why would they not bring a vessel to do just that wherever they went?

Because they are very poor - being a wandering, snake-handling shaman - and own virtually nothing more than the shirt on their back.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I sure don't ignore it. Metagame is too important to the play experience.

Important-good, or important-bad?

 

[Micah Sweet]

To me, it seems that you and some other posters are the ones fussing around definitions. I am talking about an actual phenomenon.

When we look at a game, and how it is played - a board game, a card game, a RPG - we can investigate how much control a player of the game has over the way the game unfolds. In snakes and ladders, a player has none. In chess, a skilled player has lots. In bridge, a skilled player has quite a bit, but their control is subject to the hands that they and their partner are dealt.

In a RPG, the unfolding of the game consists in the establishment and development of a shared fiction. In a conventional RPG, the participants occupy asymmetric roles - GM and player - which gives them different moves with which to influence the game. The GM has a special responsibility for setting, framing and (some) consequences; the player has a special responsibility for what one particular character in the fiction does.

We can then investigate how those roles are established, what rules and principles govern them, and from that we can identify how much control the different participant roles have over the way the game unfolds.

I don't know when I first saw the phrase "player agency" used on these boards, but to me it seems to be getting at the idea I've just set out: how much control does a RPG participant, who is in the player rather than the GM role, have over the way the game - which is to say, the shared fiction - unfolds? And that is what I am talking about.

If you want to forbid me from describing that as player agency, OK, whatever - tell me what term I'm allowed to use, and I'll use that. Quibbling over the word doesn't make the phenomenon disappear, or lose its importance to me.

Like I said above, I really like "meta agency" for the kind of thing you're talking about.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Because they are very poor - being a wandering, snake-handling shaman - and own virtually nothing more than the shirt on their back.

Just about anybody can find a cup.