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

[pemerton]

An attempt to have an impact on the state of the game. Attempting to convince an NPC to help and how, deciding whether to attempt to kill the shopkeeper you think is a changeling, pursuing the monster that attacked the NPC or staying back to help the NPC. Any number of things that has real impact what happens next or later on in the campaign. The attempt doesn't have to succeed for it to be an expression of agency.

A completely AP/DL-esque game can have this sort of thing in it. But upthread you strongly implied that there is less agency in that sort of game, compared to a sandbox.

 

[robertsconley]

Yes. It doesn't say that you have to make a roll to make a decision. If you fail the roll, you fail at your action. It is making the decision to attempt murder that required Aedhros to make the Steel test.

I don't understand why you think you can school me in the play of Burning Wheel. As far as I know you've never even played it, or read the rules!

It's like @Faolyn, who has never read the rules, thinking that there's some ambiguity in the fact that attempting cold-blooded murder can trigger a Steel test.

If what I quoted doesn't explain all the nuances, then by all means, explain and show us the original text so we can verify its accuracy. At this point I am not going to accept your word that something is true about Burning Wheel without you providing proper citations.

 

[pemerton]

In D&D the player decides what their character is emotionally and mentally capable of.

My understanding of 5e D&D is that it is permissible for the GM to call for a roll to see if a PC notices something (perception-type checks) or knows/remembers something (knowledge-type checks).

I also thought that, if the GM (say) has a sphinx ask a riddle, a player isn't entitled to just decide that their PC knows the answer.

 

[TwoSix]

it doesn't have to be realistic. The point is they want to feel like they are there in a real world, in the shoes of their character. Different players will have different levels of toleration for these things. Personally I am fine with stuff like fear effects, but I also realize it can raise agency concerns for some players

Which is fine, but having perfect control over mental state doesn't seem to enhance immersion, like at all.

It feels more like a focus on wish-fulfillment "I wish I was playing this game in a Star Trek holodeck" play rather than immersing myself in a realistic character.

Which is fine if that's what you want to do, but be upfront that your play priority is "immersive escapism".

 

[Bedrockgames]

Which is fine, but having perfect control over mental state doesn't seem to enhance immersion, like at all.

For some people it does, for some people it doesn't

 

[Bedrockgames]

It feels more like a focus on wish-fulfillment "I wish I was playing this game in a Star Trek holodeck" play rather than immersing myself in a realistic character.

This is what a lot of people are actually looking for. And it isn't a bad thing either. I think it is one of the reasons RPGs are so special

 

[AlViking]

Ok, last bit on this and I'm not bothering to respond on the "BW's Duel of Wit sucks" thread any more:

A player in a random given D&D campaign has 0 agency on the resolution of the task. It's up to the GM to call for a roll, it's up to the GM to decide if any of their words have meaning / lend advantage / are really intimidation / Persuade with Intelligence / all these other variants. It's up to the DM if they're using the social rules in the DMG or doing "persuade as mind control" outcomes. It's up to the DM what the player gets out of a success, and what happens on a failure.

In Burning Wheel, the task resolution steps are entirely in the player's hands. They have a purpose of the Duel of Wits set (intent), they choose their arguments and skills/weapons for each pass, they know the sort of resolution that's happening for each back and forth. The only thing in question is "what will the dice say" which retains uncertainty in a way that mimics how we're uncertain our arguments in real life or in a novel/movie narrative will have any sway.

I never said "dual of wits sucks", I was just trying to have a better understanding of how it works. Based on my understanding I wouldn't care for it but I can only repeat what I've said time and again. If it works for you have fun, we all have different preferences.

 

[AlViking]

Why is my emotional state more important, to agency, than that I kill the Orc? Of course a game that foregrounds one, rather than the other, creates a different experience. But I don't see I any basis for saying that one is more significant for agency than the other: they both pertain directly to whether or not the PC achieves what the player has had them attempt.

I also don't see why Burning Wheel's focus on the emotional impact of trying to murder someone more significant for agency than D&D's focus on the emotional impact of a charging dragon or the emotional impact of seeing a mummy.

A game telling me what the emotional impact would be for my character would not be meaningful to me. If it works for you I'm glad you found a game that works for you.

 

[AlViking]

A completely AP/DL-esque game can have this sort of thing in it. But upthread you strongly implied that there is less agency in that sort of game, compared to a sandbox.

I don't know how many times I have to say this. Different games express player agency differently. Different people have different criteria for what counts as expressing agency.

 

[Pedantic]

Ok, last bit on this and I'm not bothering to respond on the "BW's Duel of Wit sucks" thread any more:

A player in a random given D&D campaign has 0 agency on the resolution of the task. It's up to the GM to call for a roll, it's up to the GM to decide if any of their words have meaning / lend advantage / are really intimidation / Persuade with Intelligence / all these other variants. It's up to the DM if they're using the social rules in the DMG or doing "persuade as mind control" outcomes. It's up to the DM what the player gets out of a success, and what happens on a failure.

In Burning Wheel, the task resolution steps are entirely in the player's hands. They have a purpose of the Duel of Wits set (intent), they choose their arguments and skills/weapons for each pass, they know the sort of resolution that's happening for each back and forth. The only thing in question is "what will the dice say" which retains uncertainty in a way that mimics how we're uncertain our arguments in real life or in a novel/movie narrative will have any sway.

I'm sure some would argue the D&D case is a mischaracterization, because there is some principle at play players are probably familiar with that underlies how their particular DM handles that kind of interaction they've intuited/deduced from play. Personally, I would argue this is an ongoing design flaw, and we should have detailed, knowable interaction rules more broadly, but D&D steered away from that direction for two editions now, so, setting that line of argument aside and taking the position at face value that it's unknowable and/or the DM is capricious: neither of the two provided would be described as particularly high agency in the broader context of games outside TTRPGs as a whole.

Your worst case D&D scenario barely qualifies as a game; the player can't make meaningful decisions to get the outcome they want at all. In the second case, the player is constrained to only weak influence on the outcome; random chance will have as much or more impact on the player getting the outcome they want as the decisions of the player. That's essentially the textbook board game example of a low agency game.

If the choice is between "my decisions may not have any impact on outcomes" and "my decisions are guaranteed to have a small impact on outcomes" then it doesn't make a ton of sense to be having a conversation about agency to begin with.