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

[AlViking]

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.

Just like saying that a player has less agency because their agency is expressed through what their character says and does with an unrestricted GM determining results. But in this case the player wanted to do something and instead of deciding for themselves what their character would do they abdicated control to the rules of the game and had to roll dice.

 

[robertsconley]

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.

As I explained upthread RPG are not games in a conventional sense. The application of game theory has limited value because there's an entire layer of agency in TTRPGs that isn’t present in most other games, specifically, what players can do solely as their characters.

Thus giving rise to my observation that player agency in tabletop roleplaying games has two components: character agency, or what the players can do as their characters. And meta agency, or what players can do outside of pretending to be their characters. Your definition of agency only considers meta-agency and weighs things like railroading on that basis. Leading your conclusion that if a campaign doesn't offer any type of meta-agency the referee (or designer) of said campaign is railroading (your definition) the players.

Which incidentally also means that your set of definitions leads one to conclude that Dave Arneson was railroading (your definition) his players in the Blackmoor campaign as his players didn't have any meta-agency from the various actual play reports that were documented only character agency.

 

[jayoungr]

I don't understand.

Substitute "ruleset" for "game" and see if that helps.

What are the two different ways to play the same game?

Adventure path versus sandbox being two different ways to use the D&D ruleset (i.e. "same game").

And what are the two different games?

D&D versus any other ruleset (Blades in the Dark, Hillfolk, etc.). We've got multiple threads of conversation in this discussion, but as far as I could tell, yours was part of the one about agency in GM-less versus GM'd games. Er, rulesets.

 

[Bedrockgames]

As I explained upthread RPG are not games in a conventional sense. The application of game theory has limited value because there's an entire layer of agency in TTRPGs that isn’t present in most other games, specifically, what players can do solely as their characters.

Thus giving rise to my observation that player agency in tabletop roleplaying games has two components: character agency, or what the players can do as their characters. And meta agency, or what players can do outside of pretending to be their characters. Your definition of agency only considers meta-agency and weighs things like railroading on that basis. Leading your conclusion that if a campaign doesn't offer any type of meta-agency the referee (or designer) of said campaign is railroading (your definition) the players.

Which incidentally also means that your set of definitions leads one to conclude that Dave Arneson was railroading (your definition) his players in the Blackmoor campaign as his players didn't have any meta-agency from the various actual play reports that were documented only character agency.

I linked this Monte Cook essay on agency versus narrative control earlier and I think it might relevant here again to what you are saying: Player Agency and Narrative Control

 

[robertsconley]

So I’m throwing this into the discussion of player agency: what’s everyone’s view on the structure of Dave Arneson’s original Blackmoor campaign?

Specifically, I’m referring to the earliest phase, before the creation of the Blackmoor Dungeons, where, from what I understand, there weren’t many of what we now call NPCs. Instead, the main antagonists were other players. Dave acted primarily as a neutral referee, adjudicating outcomes rather than creating story arcs or the opposition. Even some of the dungeon play retained that model before the campaign transitioned into something more recognizable as a traditional RPG campaign.

Now, suppose I ran a Majestic Fantasy Realms campaign in that style. With enough players involved, each session would bring in a different group of characters, each pursuing their own goals, with little to no centralized narrative. The campaign would be driven primarily by player actions, emergent conflict, alliances, and consequences stemming from what the characters themselves choose to do. The referee’s role would be to maintain the world’s consistency and arbitrate outcomes impartially.

Where does this kind of setup fall in terms of player agency as there is only character agency and no meta agency. And unlike my living world campaigns, the world is brought to life by the players, not the referee.

 

[Gradine]

Just like saying that a player has less agency because their agency is expressed through what their character says and does with an unrestricted GM determining results. But in this case the player wanted to do something and instead of deciding for themselves what their character would do they abdicated control to the rules of the game and had to roll dice.

Is your contention that any game mechanic that would prevent the player from deciding every single their character says and does, such as those mechanics modeling anything from morale to willpower to sanity to mind control, is inherently limiting to or a lessening of player agency? Should a game that purports to center player agency avoid any and all such mechanics?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Fair enough. I have to say I don't really agree with the OP's premise in that case. Not wanting specific new ideas in your gaming is not "the problem". People should just do what they like, and tolerate what they don't, providing no harm is done either way.

I want to suggest this delicately, since I'm not automatically going to be on the OP's side in any given thread I post in, but I do have to say that I think the first post does set some legitimacy to positions that support it; doesn't mean everyone needs to, but I'd say that at that point "This is a D&D thread" is not a good counter to suggestions D&D hasn't done something right. The whole thread is, to some extent, about whether what D&D's done is the best even if its been doing it for a long time (this aside the way most of the last half of it as gone off on an extended largely dead-end argument about what translates into player agency, what a sandbox is, and the legitimacy of trying to run in a naturalistic way and what that means. Honestly, most of that only borderline has anything to do with D&D per se).

 

[Micah Sweet]

I want to suggest this delicately, since I'm not automatically going to be on the OP's side in any given thread I post in, but I do have to say that I think the first post does set some legitimacy to positions that support it; doesn't mean everyone needs to, but I'd say that at that point "This is a D&D thread" is not a good counter to suggestions D&D hasn't done something right. The whole thread is, to some extent, about whether what D&D's done is the best even if its been doing it for a long time (this aside the way most of the last half of it as gone off on an extended largely dead-end argument about what translates into player agency, what a sandbox is, and the legitimacy of trying to run in a naturalistic way and what that means. Honestly, most of that only borderline has anything to do with D&D per se).

You have a point. I suppose I let my irritation with Narrativism overwhelm my rhetoric. It's not fair, and I apologize.

 

[zakael19]

I want to suggest this delicately, since I'm not automatically going to be on the OP's side in any given thread I post in, but I do have to say that I think the first post does set some legitimacy to positions that support it; doesn't mean everyone needs to, but I'd say that at that point "This is a D&D thread" is not a good counter to suggestions D&D hasn't done something right. The whole thread is, to some extent, about whether what D&D's done is the best even if its been doing it for a long time (this aside the way most of the last half of it as gone off on an extended largely dead-end argument about what translates into player agency, what a sandbox is, and the legitimacy of trying to run in a naturalistic way and what that means. Honestly, most of that only borderline has anything to do with D&D per se).

I keep citing the 2024 DMG to try and bring the OP's points back into play! It's interesting to see how it's swung the pendulum of general content and advice back towards what the 4e setup tried to do, but with the advantage of another decade + of general community growth and ideas around what it means to play D&D taken into account.

So I’m throwing this into the discussion of player agency: what’s everyone’s view on the structure of Dave Arneson’s original Blackmoor campaign?

Specifically, I’m referring to the earliest phase, before the creation of the Blackmoor Dungeons, where, from what I understand, there weren’t many of what we now call NPCs. Instead, the main antagonists were other players. Dave acted primarily as a neutral referee, adjudicating outcomes rather than creating story arcs or the opposition. Even some of the dungeon play retained that model before the campaign transitioned into something more recognizable as a traditional RPG campaign.

Now, suppose I ran a Majestic Fantasy Realms campaign in that style. With enough players involved, each session would bring in a different group of characters, each pursuing their own goals, with little to no centralized narrative. The campaign would be driven primarily by player actions, emergent conflict, alliances, and consequences stemming from what the characters themselves choose to do. The referee’s role would be to maintain the world’s consistency and arbitrate outcomes impartially.

Where does this kind of setup fall in terms of player agency as there is only character agency and no meta agency. And unlike my living world campaigns, the world is brought to life by the players, not the referee.

I'm not sure how this is fundamentally any different from a Blorb style sandbox, except that the players are running opposing domains to some degree? Sorry, I don't have enough context to make anything more here (most of your play examples / referents like @pemerton 's are older then I am, hence why a lot of it feels so dang conservative to me ).

 

[Maxperson]

No, there's only one type of agency we're talking about. It's that of the player playing the game. Player agency.

It's about the player understanding and knowing the rules and processes of play to make decisions that affect play and allow them to achieve the goals of play.

I mean, you don't get to dictate the type of agency I am talking about. Those of us on the sandbox side of things are talking about player agency through their character declarations and actions, not player agency over the game outside of their character.

This is how players of any game exercise agency.

That's one way, yes. It's not the type of agency I am talking about or that others advocating for sandbox play are talking about.