A Question Of Agency?

[prabe]

Nope, this is ignoring the context of that phrase. "Play to find out what happens," means no one at the table knows what play will be about until it gets there. What you're implying is that we don't know if this fight against the Quantum Ogre the GM Forced using Illusionism will result in the PCs winning or losing. At least one player knows what play will be about, here -- the GM. They are not "playing to find out."

Yeah. If the table is working through an Adventure Path (or equivalent) more or less everyone has a good idea where the story is going, at least in broad terms. If the GM is improvising based on what the PCs do and has only prepped starting points, that at least seems a lot closer to the ethos implied by "Play to find out."

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And you've arrived at my argument, although I don't think you see it because you're still arguing that the issue is being unable to determine relative levels of agency. Instead, we can clearly see the agency -- you've even agreed to this here. What's different is how we then value that agency. That's absolutely subjective. The relative levels of agency is observational and valid, but whether or not you care about that is entirely subjective. This has been a point repeated hammered throughout the thread -- it's perfectly fine to enjoy games with less agency. Otherwise, I'd never play Gloomhaven or 5e, and yet I relish both. It's not because my evaluation of the amounts of agency involved is in any way subjective -- it's not, I can explain clearly the differences using the same metrics. What's different is how much I value those differences, which, in these case, is not much because of the other things these games provide.

Agency is not one clear thing. It is not really about agency vs other things, it is more about agency over different things. I value agency over the internal life of my character highly and agency over the external game world much, much less. Thus to me a game which restricts the former feels like a low agency game, even though it had plenty of the latter. Other people might feel the exact opposite. And how much weigh each person gives to agency over different things is purely subjective.

 

[chaochou]

Agency is not one clear thing. It is not really about agency vs other things, it is more about agency over different things. I value agency over the internal life of my character highly and agency over the external game world much, much less. Thus to me a game which restricts the former feels like a low agency game, even though it had plenty of the latter. Other people might feel the exact opposite. And how much weigh each person gives to agency over different things is purely subjective.

Name the games which restrict 'agency over the internal life of the character'. And cite the rules which do so please.

Oh, you don't know any! ROFL.

 

[Imaro]

Look, there's no "gotcha" waiting behind the point that some games have more or less agency than others. This should be trivially obvious. The issue here is that, for whatever reason, people are choosing to take a statement about relative agency as insulting or belittling to their choice of game. This isn't true, though, and as someone that enjoys the same game but can acknowledge the relative difference in agency, it should be obvious that it isn't.

Unless, of course, you think that I just enjoy insulting myself? I don't, but that's an interesting take.

But, back to the lack of a "gotcha." The acknowledgement says nothing at all about you or your game. It can only ever say anything about a person making a choice, and all that is said there is that they prefer a thing or not.

Or... people just don't agree that your assertion is correct??

 

[Ovinomancer]

Agency is not one clear thing. It is not really about agency vs other things, it is more about agency over different things. I value agency over the internal life of my character highly and agency over the external game world much, much less. Thus to me a game which restricts the former feels like a low agency game, even though it had plenty of the latter. Other people might feel the exact opposite. And how much weigh each person gives to agency over different things is purely subjective.

Again, the idea that there are different types of agency is baseless. There's only the players making choices. Subdividing agency into different areas just obfuscates the issue -- having "agency" over your character's "internal life" is not something unique to D&D, it's present in every game discussed. What you're confusing here is that you have "agency" because the game you play cannot put those things at risk, but this is a flawed vision of agency. Agency isn't absolute control (although absolute control can defeat agency), it's the ability to make choices that determine the direction of things. There's no restriction on your agency if the thing you've chosen to put into play (and that's what's happening in the games your claiming to have lower agency) is then put at risk -- this is a choice you've already made, it's not evaluated in isolation.

This argument is like saying that your character's hitpoints are inviable because you don't want to take damage. It's clearly nonsense here because it's obvious you've put your character's hitpoints at risk through play. Same same.

 

[hawkeyefan]

This all sounds very cool, and I have nothing against this sort of play. The sort of moral conflicts that challenge the characters values are on e of my favourite things. But you know what would ruin this scenario for me? That instead of me, the player, making that fateful choice to have my character either to compromise his beliefs or follow them and become a monster, there was some game mechanic that made that choice for me. That is what I was talking about.

That's perfectly valid not to like it.

I may have missed the context of whatever example may have been in discussion.

I don't think that, depending on how it came about, some mechanic made that choice for you (I don't know if that's the case, but assuming it is for this comment) it is necessarily a removal of agency. It depends on how it came about and how the game works.

But the same way that if I fail my save, I'm gonna run away from the dragon, I don't go into these games expecting absolute and total authority over my PC.

Very few people actually seem to think that, even if they claim that's how a game should work. They'll say "agency is my ability to decide any and everything for my PC; no one else can decide what they will think or feel or do". And then you say "Well what about Charm Person or Dragon Fear?" and then they will say "Okay, yes, but those are highly specific instances, for which a saving throw is at play. And they're different cause magic."

This is a bit of a tangent here, but it just kind of occurred to me.....if we look at absolute GM authority of the game world as being potentially undesirable because it's a railroad, I think that having a PC who is never going to actually grow or change to be similarly offputting as a railroad. The world really doesn't get to this guy? Like ever? Only if the player chooses? Where is the risk in this approach to play, other than just the character living or dying?

Isn't that risk what makes something meaningful?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Or... people just don't agree that your assertion is correct??

Which assertion? That having a GM approve everything is obviously less player agency than if the players have ways to assert things without GM approval? I haven't seen anyone actually argue this otherwise. It's just spins off into the weeds with definitional arguments (this doesn't rely on those) or ideas that agency can be subdivided and it's this subdivision that makes the difference.

 

[prabe]

Name the games which restrict 'agency over the internal life of the character'. And cite the rules which do so please.

Oh, you don't know any! ROFL.

As it's been explained here, Monsterhearts has mechanics that allow another player to take control of my character's desires, thereby reducing my agency over my character's internal life. Will that suffice?

ETA: If I understand how @pemerton has described Beliefs in Burning Wheel, those can be changed by mechanics in the game, which would also seem to reduce a player's agency over their character's internal life.

And Fate has Consequence-esque results of conflicts, which can replace a character's Aspects, which also would seem to (potentially, depending on the Aspects) reduce a player's agency over their character's internal life.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'm weird. I often play in games that don't work the way I want them to, lol. There are just other considerations. There ARE games I'll pass on, partly due to considerations mentioned here, but the more that the game addresses something I find interesting, particularly if I am coming up with a character concept that is highly aligned with that, then do I absolutely need narrative process? It would be better, but it might not outweigh other considerations. I'll definitely play AD&D with my old buddy, the master of railroads, but not because I am excited by that aspect of play. That's just people I would want to socialize with and they are fun to play with, for reasons which may be hard to analyze.

I don't think you're weird. Or at least not because of this!

I think this applies for a lot of people. I'll rarely turn down a chance to play a game with one of my friends GMing. And usually I know them well enough to know what to expect, and so I can enjoy it accordingly. Every now and then something happens where it's less than satisfying. But it's not that big a deal.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Again, the idea that there are different types of agency is baseless.

It's not. It is how people actually experience these things and is at the core of many of the disagreements here. If your contextual framework do not correspond to actual experience of the players, it is worthless for discussing games.