Dealing with agency and retcon (in semi sandbox)

[TheSword]

Decreases mystery how? This seems related to the point I was making. There can be mystery in the game world. There shouldn't be mystery for the players in understanding how the game works.

By mystery I mean who, what, where, when, why - where the players start with zero knowledge. Is the noble a friend or a foe. Can the guard captain be trusted. Who is responsible for the abductions one the docks. Where does the strange black door lead to. What is the purpose of the small vials of brain matter found in the murdered merchant's belonging etc etc. These are things I consider mysteries. Its also most of the exploration tier of play, which people in D&D terms sometimes think is all about rolling survival checks. When in truth its about exploring the unknown.

So, you're saying that allowing multiple participants to decide stakes is self indulgent... but having one participant do so isn't? Doesn't that seem inconsistent?

I'm saying that players deciding these things can lead to self-indulgence. The DM on the other hand is there to provide entertainment to the players. Five people creating a story can lead to a fractured, unconnected and self-indulgent elements. I see it all the time when multiple authors work on Adventure Paths. I think it leads to a weaker product.

Regarding the challenge... I'm not saying it can't be fixed beforehand. I'm saying that information should be made available to the players.

Are you telling a story or playing a game? I think that's probably a key question to ask when we start playing. If we're concerned about player agency (and we don't have to be, it's a preference), then we have to focus on the player... we have to focus on the game.

If you're telling a story, then player agency isn't going to be as much of a concern.

You can do both. A story can be revealed but also influenced and changed by the players. As soon as @ZebraDruid decided that the noble wanted to kill his family he started to tell a story. Agency is about being able to influence the story. Often I see people equate agency with autonomy - being able to act independently of influence or oversight. Agency is great - autonomy isn't practical for the kind of games I like to both play in and DM.

 

[hawkeyefan]

By mystery I mean who, what, where, when, why - where the players start with zero knowledge. Is the noble a friend or a foe. Can the guard captain be trusted. Who is responsible for the abductions one the docks. Where does the strange black door lead to. What is the purpose of the small vials of brain matter found in the murdered merchant's belonging etc etc. These are things I consider mysteries. Its also most of the exploration tier of play, which people in D&D terms sometimes think is all about rolling survival checks. When in truth its about exploring the unknown.

But nothing I said doesn't allow for those kinds of mysteries. I commented about sharing information with players. Tell the player what they need to know in order to make informed decisions as a player.

So they don't know what's beyond a given dungeon door, but they know they can try and listen to detect noise and have X chance of success, or that they have spells they can use to learn what's in there, or that they if they interact with another denizen of the dungeon, they may be able to learn what's beyond the door... and so on.

Game information shouldn't be hidden from the players.

Now, I wouldn't disagree about players being able to decide the stakes and the consequences and things like that... but I wasn't really commenting on that in my initial post. I wanted to start at a more fundamental level.

I'm saying that players deciding these things can lead to self-indulgence. The DM on the other hand is there to provide entertainment to the players. Five people creating a story can lead to a fractured, unconnected and self-indulgent elements. I see it all the time when multiple authors work on Adventure Paths. I think it leads to a weaker product.

I think making a distinction here between GM and players is mistaken. It's a group activity, and everyone involved is there to try and help everyone else enjoy themselves. I don't think this is the special purview of the GM, nor do I think it excuses them from self-indulgence as you've described. I would say that, if you want to allow for player agency, then the GM has to relinquish some of their control. They have to stop being self-indulgent.

I think the comparison to adventure paths is pretty telling. Having a specific story... or path... benefits from a sole authority in the game.

The adventure path is antithetical to player agency.

You can do both. A story can be revealed but also influenced and changed by the players. As soon as @ZebraDruid decided that the noble wanted to kill his family he started to tell a story. Agency is about being able to influence the story. Often I see people equate agency with autonomy - being able to act independently of influence or oversight. Agency is great - autonomy isn't practical for the kind of games I like to both play in and DM.

I don't think that the focus of play can be both telling a story and allowing the players agency. If you have a story to tell then everything is going to shape itself around that story. If the GM shows up with a story already determined, there's not really going to be agency on the player's part. Their decisions and choices will be subordinate to that story.

I agree that autonomy and agency aren't the same. But I'm not sure how you're defining autonomy here. To me, it's the most basic level of authority for a player in order for the activity to really be considered a game. That I get to have a turn, and what I do on that turn is up to me.... that's autonomy.

Agency goes further in that it's more related to what the game is about, and how players are able to determine that. How players are able to say what is important to play. Not just how can a player interact with the GM's pre-written plot. But how they can forge their own plots.

This is related to the stakes- and consequence-setting mentioned earlier. It's not about knowing the solution to the problems... the answer to the kinds of mysteries you mentioned... it's about deciding what mysteries even matter in the first place.

 

[ZebraDruid]

You're showing the problem with this by your very phrasing: "if". If they have no idea whether it will be or won't, they aren't setting stakes at all; they're interacting with a black box. If you have no way to establish the benefits or costs actually associated with an action, you're not setting any stakes at all; you're simply accepting whatever ones the GM has, blindly.

I think 'Ifs' are important, are they not? They do not interfere with agency.

An easy example. You as a person have agency (I hope but ignore the deeper pondering)
You can choose to drive somewhere, work, school, store etc.

You can reasonably expect that on the way to that location you have a non 0 chance to have car trouble, or to get hit in traffic etc, you might get your vehicle/bike damaged. You might be killed, but you as a person are largely not in control of these outcomes. You may be able to act to mitigate these outcomes, by perceiving a threat and attempting to avoid it, but you are not in absolute authority to the outcome.

Whether or not these outcomes were pre-determined to you as a person is unknown, but you feel you have agency all the same.

Now suppose you were given omnipotent knowledge of the days outcomes, or perhaps even their chance, would that affect the way you proceed with the day, and would that remove something from the feeling of agency? Or would it feel more satisfying?

Stay home - 1% chance of death
Bike to work - 2% of breaking leg in accident.
Drive to work - 6% chance of wreck
Go jogging - 3% chance of death.

Would this table help make you feel like your choice was more meaningful? What if you knew the outcomes 'for sure' ahead of time?

Stay home - Nothing happens.
Bike to work - Nothing happens.
Drive to work - Car stalls and you run into a friend who helps.
Go jogging - Find a quarter.

Now you've established outcome, without risk. There are no 'ifs', so there can be no risk. And most of all there is no mystery.

I think that often when it comes to RPGs, there's fuzziness around the idea of player agency. It's likely due to several factors, but there are two that seem most relevant to me, and I think they're connected.

First, I don't think the simple act of taking part in the game... the ability to play... is enough to constitute agency. In an RPG, this entails declaring what your character does. This alone should is a bare minimum, and its presence isn't sufficient to establish agency. Too many people seem to think this is enough to establish agency. It's not.

Second is the perceived need to separate character knowledge and player knowledge. This is something that generally doesn't exist in other games. In almost any other game, you're a participant in the game, and so you know what's going on, what may happen at any time, what you are allowed to do, what the stakes are... and so on. There may be information that you're not privy to... let's say like an opposing team's playbook in football, for example... but the range of possibilities are known. You know what the other team can do, and you likely know their strengths and weaknesses.

Look at almost any other game other than pure games of chance, and the player is aware of the odds and the stakes and so on. In chess, you can literally see the entirety of the board... yet you can still miss an opponent's move, or be unable to stop it. In poker, there are cards that you cannot see... but there are cards you can see, and you know what's in the deck, and what cards are likely, and so on... you have the ability to act in an informed manner.

That's agency. Being able to actually play the game, just as you'd expect in almost any other game.

Apply this weird restriction to any other game, and you immediately see it. If you could somehow limit the knowledge of participants in other games so that they could not know the opponents' strengths, or could not know what cards are in the deck, or were not allowd to know how many yards they had to get to make a first down, or what inning it was or how many outs there were... such restrictions would be considered awful for the state of a game.

Yet people do it in RPGs all the time.

This whole "meta" angle really needs to be dropped if you want to promote agency. Simply share information with the players. Let them make informed decisions. They are players in a game... let them be so. I know this often leads to cries of "RP is more important than the G" and "role play rather than roll play" but that's all garbage. Role playing is not diminished by sharing game information.

If you want to allow agency, you have to empower players. And as with any other game, they need to understand the circumstances, odds, and stakes at any point of play.

If that's not something that appeals, then you're not interested in player agency.

And this is before we even really get into the mechanics and processes of play. Sharing information with the players so that they can then use that information to make meaningful decisions is the first step toward actual agency.

I somewhat agree with what you're saying. I appreciate the theoretical approach. But as from my above comment I don't think knowing the specific odds and outcomes at all times creates a more interesting experience. It leaves nothing to explore and discover, and instead one might feel like they're left with a series of doors to choose, instead of a room to explore.

If you want to allow agency, you have to empower players

This I think brings up an interesting concept of DM approach, with the below quote.

I know this often leads to cries of "RP is more important than the G" and "role play rather than roll play"

I think these are two fundamentally different approaches, that as a DM you need to recognize in your players. I don't believe either of these are 'wrong'.

Are the characters actions and players empowerment more important than story telling and perhaps tactical gameplay?
Then you might prefer to ignore story over player success.

Do you wish to challenge your players, and engage them in a story that does not need to end in success, but the journey may be satisfying all the same?

Then story and mechanics are probably more important than success.

However, I don't think agency is being violated when a player does not succeed.

OP, if you're going to put the campaign on a rail, put it on a rail. Sometimes there are good reasons for this, such as when you are playing with beginners who are still learning the ropes, or somewhat passive players who prefer to react to a fairly obvious plot rather than exercise a ton of agency. The latter is a valid preference for some players, so I'm not criticizing it.

Pre-published adventures (and Pathfinder is lousy with good pre-published adventures) can do railed campaigns very effectively.

And if you're gonna sandbox, as you claim, then you gotta let the players legitimately have significant agency and story control. As others have suggestions, prepare various story kernels and react to what the players do. Collaborate with them.

But from how you describe the situation, your campaign was neither fish nor fowl. You had a very meticulously plotted out arc, which suggests a railed campaign, but then you gave the players some significant story latitude, which suggests sandbox. So of course they went way off script.

Since you've asked for advice, I would suggest being much clearer about the structure of the campaign right up front. As well, I don't know about their party structure of a cleric of Asmodeus and Paladin of Serenae battle for hearts and minds. I mean...I kind of love it, but that's a really hard dynamic to pull off and sort of demands serious roleplaying chops, which doesn't necessarily fit with how you describe your group.

You're not wrong, my party loved my linear curated dungeon, and no one complained, even the bard who jumped into a death pit.
I don't see how I can't have semi multi directional railroads in a sandbox that the party can choose to ride on or not though.

My cleric said the same thing regarding serious RP. We went from a silly dungeon, to a serious one immediately, and we've talked about dialing it back a bit until people are more comfortable with these kinds of stories.

The problem with this approach is that it decreases mystery. Sure there is a fun random element to that kind of player improvised game, but when players are effectively playing ‘who’s line is it anyway’ you lose some of the wonder of solving mysteries. Before anyone responds - Thr fact that you made it up on the spot doesn’t make it a mystery.

Whenever I have heard/read actual descriptions of players setting their own stakes and outcomes in these kinds of play things always seem to become self indulgent and in some cases bogged down by that. I get that it might be fun for some people but I know for a fact my players like the fact that things are fixed before they start the session because then the choices make made a difference to something tangible. The challenge is set and they beat it, fail at it or come somewhere in the middle. Maybe this is simplistic but it is satisfying.

Knowing all the facts is not the blessing you think it is. I think mystery is essential for a good story. TTRPG is not a board game or a game of poker. The unknown and the desire to explore the unknown are very powerful motivations and the reason a lot of people play the game I think.

I agree, I am capable of presenting spontaneous situations on the spot. A 'whose line is it anyway' approach is ehh... In my opinion more suited to drunken nights where people just wanna have fun with 1 off characters. There is nothing wrong with that. The game is about fun after all.

I just don't think it is very engaging, and I'm not so sure the mechanics/rolls even matter in that kind of environment. In that environment I think it would be much better to just roll a d20 to determine success, and let people laugh at the whimsy of chance.

. The challenge is set and they beat it, fail at it or come somewhere in the middle. Maybe this is simplistic but it is satisfying.

I think using my above point. This is more or less illustrates a game to be played and a story to be told.

Where as random events are I think perhaps? more about empowerment? And less about actual details or challenge.

Oh you guys are all wounded with no spell slots left? Well there was a mini boss in the next room, but I guess they're asleep and there is a healing fountain nearby...

I see absolutely nothing wrong with what @ZebraDruid has done. He’s just coping with managing players for the first time.

As a side note (not in reference to your post) it’s really frustrating when someone asks for advice and the advice is change system! It’s refreshing that this is one of the few game advice questions that doesn’t involve D&D. Use a different system is probably the least helpful thing anyone can say.

Thank you.

Is this based on actual play experience of mysteries in Burning Wheel, Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, and other high-agency-oriented RPGs?

Which actual play descriptions?

I've linked to some and posted some in this thread. Where is the self-indulgence and "bogging down"?

I think getting too specific on the system bogs down the actual essence of discovering what is agency or not, because if agency is dependent on the game system, then agency is really an intangible and subjective thing.

Are we as people exercising agency right now? It's too much if you get specific like that.

That's not how I read the OP's post. They seemed concerned about the direction the story had taken.

In my experience, heavily pre-plotting in advance typically leads to the GM either trying to exercise a lot of control over the direction of the story, which as I noted is not necessarily bad depending on the nature of the group, or reacting awkwardly when players go off script. YVMV. Having a detailed mystery or NPC-driven plot for the players to interact with can be fun; that's not what I mean by pre-plotting.

I agree that recommending a different game is not useful advice most of the time.

I'm agnostic on the outcome of the story. I only want my players to be entertained, and engaged. They were both of those things. But at the same time a couple of them felt a bit cheated, and I want to recognize if that is a failing on my part, or a growning pain/misunderstanding as roleplayers/DM.

As I've said, I'm far from perfect (why would I even ask advice then?)

The thing is, the players explored story 'I had not preplanned'. It something they discovered. It's a bit like if they walked out into the forest and said "Is there a wolf den here?" And I responded...Ahh well yes there are wolves in the forest typically, so...ahh Rolls 1d20, gets 15 Yes there's a wolf den here. Oh, you ran in alone and were eaten by wolves? Well...

Just as, they gave the body to a necromancer, and asked "Can I watch the resurrection?" "...Ahh well, yes technically you 'could'..."

They weren't upset about their decision to see the ritual, only the outcome that they observed by doing so. In this case, the players had knowledge of a resurrection, and that it was going to happen. The details were left to be investigated.

rereading the OP and noticing that it was actually the cleric who asked the group/paladin to not come to the ritual rather than OP/GM, the wizard and ranger also remained outside while the ritual was performed i assume?

Right, yes. I did not tell him not to go in OOC, and in OOC I asked if he 'wanted' to go in. He said he didn't (I still don't get it) The wizard did go in with the cleric, but only the cleric took part in the ritual, the wizard was just curious.

This has been my point about agency. I couldn't 'force' him to do the thing that would give him the outcome he 'wanted'. I didn't have the power to give him the good ending.

Even though this is actually what I as a DM wanted to see. (Mostly because it was more interesting.)

So, you're saying that allowing multiple participants to decide stakes is self indulgent... but having one participant do so isn't? Doesn't that seem inconsistent?

Regarding the challenge... I'm not saying it can't be fixed beforehand. I'm saying that information should be made available to the players.

I don't think anyone decided the stakes, besides the paladin ratting, but I'm not sure that is the same as setting the outcome.

The information on the entire story was available if they searched for it, but even partial information was given by doing the quest itself.
Necomantic stuff was found in the crypt, at least tipping them off that something wasn't right about the family. At that point they had went to rob the house, but only for money, not information. (There was a study with papers, and another desk upstairs with more papers/journals/info on it)

Are you telling a story or playing a game? I think that's probably a key question to ask when we start playing. If we're concerned about player agency (and we don't have to be, it's a preference), then we have to focus on the player... we have to focus on the game.

If you're telling a story, then player agency isn't going to be as much of a concern.

Yeah, pretty much what I said above, it's kind of a preference.

First, Fea-bella is a PC, who thus exists only in imagination. We're talking about player agency, a real thing in the real world.

Wait, so you're saying PC agency is separate from real life player agency? I don't understand. Then if I killed the cleric with a lightning bolt from Sarenrae for taking part in a ritual of Asmodeus when he stepped out the crypt...I'm only violating the agency of the imaginary character?

I don't understand what you're talking about.

Third, the players knew there was a hole in the ground, and declared an action to have their PCs enter it. Had the check succeeded, then they would have achieved their goal and the PCs would have descended safely into the dungeon.

So, if a player decided to wait outside the dungeon instead of going in, their agency would have been violated when inside the dungeon the rest of their party was trapped by some evil monster who succeeded in his plot?

I guess I really should force my players to go into the 'boo!' haunted house next time so they can shoot arrows at the pop up bed sheet ghosts. It's Gygaxian at it's finest, creator of Tomb of Horrors.

From your OP:
You gave the players a quest. You established the consequences of permitting the noble to perform the ritual (including not only the triggering of the curse, but the killing of the rest of the family).

Right, and they had the chance to find out more about the story through exploration/diplomacy/sneaking. Paying respect to the individual players skill sets and trying to give them all opportunities to be useful.

So when the players have their PCs accept the quest, that is not an exercise of their agency. (Suppose they had their PCs say "no" - what was that evening's play going to be about?)

I think that illustrates what someone said way earlier.

The thing is, the DM has to prep something or there’s no game to play. Whether that something is a collection of scenes, situations, plots, or locations (ideally, a mixture of all of them) doesn’t really matter as long as the players choose how they interact with them (including choosing to not interact directly).
Even agency starts at a point of accepting certain premises for the campaign. And one of those is the DM has material he’s willing to prep. If a player isn’t willing to exert his agency within that boundary, there’s no game.

@pemerton The quest is much like a dungeon. They can choose not to enter the dungeon, that's up to them. But saying they've lost agency because they enter the dungeon because it was presented is a bit of a reach. Remember I'm trying to entertain them. Not play Saturday night charades.

They had 'fun' with what I prepared.

If they choose not to go on the quest, then I'd probably let them separate or explore the town in some abstract fashion. I'm not a wizard.

Your approach seems to suggest that I should prepare/offer nothing, and instead come to the session with a few abstract ideas that would probably amount to them walking the town and randomly 'getting mugged' and then 'a person is in distress' or a 'cat is lodged up a tree, but it's actually a baby dweomeor cat and roll a check or it scratches you.'

That isn't what they asked of me. They 'wanted' a quest with a dungeon. I gave them one.

If they said no to it. That would be like you going to a restaurant, ordering the chicken and rice, and when it gets there. "Ahh my agency to choose my dinner has been SULLIED!"

As you set it out here, the player of the paladin did not know what was at stake in the decision about whether to enter or not enter the crypt, and the player was declaring actions based on their best guess as to what you as GM expected them to do in order to make the scenario work.

They had a chance to discover this knowledge multiple times, in multiple ways, legal and not. They had suspicion OOC and IC as to the motives of the noble from the start. Because they didn't know the exact consequences they refused to look into, doesn't mean they had no agency.

Again. Trapped hall metaphor.

By mystery I mean who, what, where, when, why - where the players start with zero knowledge. Is the noble a friend or a foe. Can the guard captain be trusted. Who is responsible for the abductions one the docks. Where does the strange black door lead to. What is the purpose of the small vials of brain matter found in the murdered merchant's belonging etc etc. These are things I consider mysteries. Its also most of the exploration tier of play, which people in D&D terms sometimes think is all about rolling survival checks. When in truth its about exploring the unknown.

I'm saying that players deciding these things can lead to self-indulgence. The DM on the other hand is there to provide entertainment to the players. Five people creating a story can lead to a fractured, unconnected and self-indulgent elements. I see it all the time when multiple authors work on Adventure Paths. I think it leads to a weaker product.


You can do both. A story can be revealed but also influenced and changed by the players. As soon as @ZebraDruid decided that the noble wanted to kill his family he started to tell a story. Agency is about being able to influence the story. Often I see people equate agency with autonomy - being able to act independently of influence or oversight. Agency is great - autonomy isn't practical for the kind of games I like to both play in and DM.

Agency and automony. Thanks. That's an interesting contrast. Probably the word I've been searching for.

I think what some people are describing here with 'knowing/deciding the contents of the box before hand' are practicing complete character autonomy. The self-determination to decide their own fate/destiny.

Not very interesting outside of self indulgent fan-ficton. In my opinion.

 

[TheSword]

But nothing I said doesn't allow for those kinds of mysteries. I commented about sharing information with players. Tell the player what they need to know in order to make informed decisions as a player.

So they don't know what's beyond a given dungeon door, but they know they can try and listen to detect noise and have X chance of success, or that they have spells they can use to learn what's in there, or that they if they interact with another denizen of the dungeon, they may be able to learn what's beyond the door... and so on.

Game information shouldn't be hidden from the players.

Now, I wouldn't disagree about players being able to decide the stakes and the consequences and things like that... but I wasn't really commenting on that in my initial post. I wanted to start at a more fundamental level.



I think making a distinction here between GM and players is mistaken. It's a group activity, and everyone involved is there to try and help everyone else enjoy themselves. I don't think this is the special purview of the GM, nor do I think it excuses them from self-indulgence as you've described. I would say that, if you want to allow for player agency, then the GM has to relinquish some of their control. They have to stop being self-indulgent.

I think the comparison to adventure paths is pretty telling. Having a specific story... or path... benefits from a sole authority in the game.

The adventure path is antithetical to player agency.



I don't think that the focus of play can be both telling a story and allowing the players agency. If you have a story to tell then everything is going to shape itself around that story. If the GM shows up with a story already determined, there's not really going to be agency on the player's part. Their decisions and choices will be subordinate to that story.

I agree that autonomy and agency aren't the same. But I'm not sure how you're defining autonomy here. To me, it's the most basic level of authority for a player in order for the activity to really be considered a game. That I get to have a turn, and what I do on that turn is up to me.... that's autonomy.

Agency goes further in that it's more related to what the game is about, and how players are able to determine that. How players are able to say what is important to play. Not just how can a player interact with the GM's pre-written plot. But how they can forge their own plots.

This is related to the stakes- and consequence-setting mentioned earlier. It's not about knowing the solution to the problems... the answer to the kinds of mysteries you mentioned... it's about deciding what mysteries even matter in the first place.

Agency isn’t binary. It’s a spectrum. There are degrees of agency. It’s possible for the DM to plot a series of occurrences in the world that form a plot line or storyline and for the players to be able to interact with in whichever way they choose. Players form the social contract which says they will interact in good faith and not decide to climb mountains in the next kingdom.

There’s plenty of agency in such circumstances. Certainly enough to provide a very satisfying RPG. Do players have complete control not over the world but yes over their characters.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I somewhat agree with what you're saying. I appreciate the theoretical approach. But as from my above comment I don't think knowing the specific odds and outcomes at all times creates a more interesting experience. It leaves nothing to explore and discover, and instead one might feel like they're left with a series of doors to choose, instead of a room to explore.

Interesting is subjective. I'm saying that if you want player agency, then the players need to be informed. agency in and of itself is neither bad nor good... unless it's what one wants or doesn't want.

This I think brings up an interesting concept of DM approach, with the below quote.
I think these are two fundamentally different approaches, that as a DM you need to recognize in your players. I don't believe either of these are 'wrong'.

Absolutely. I'm trying to avoid value judgments like that. I don't think that player agency is always appropriate. It depends on the game and the preferences and expectation of the participants.

My comments have all been about when player agency is desired.

Are the characters actions and players empowerment more important than story telling and perhaps tactical gameplay?
Then you might prefer to ignore story over player success.

Do you wish to challenge your players, and engage them in a story that does not need to end in success, but the journey may be satisfying all the same?

Then story and mechanics are probably more important than success.

However, I don't think agency is being violated when a player does not succeed.

No, failure isn't taking away agency. I mean, it may be, but it's not inherently.

So I think the confusion may be coming from the idea of setting stakes and consequences. It's not about the player determining the outcome. It's about determining what is at stake, and what the probable outcomes may be. Whether it will succeed or fail is still up in the air, but the actual situation can be evaluated and the player can make a decision. For a simple example, imagine there's a need for the PC to get across a 20' chasm. There's a rope bridge that's 90 feet away, but their ally on the other side is about to be overrun by enemies. The player has to decide to make the jump... the GM should offer the DC up front, and say what happens if the check is failed. The player can then decide to risk the jump, or to spend the time running to the bridge. That's an informed decision.

When we talk about player agency, we have to separate that from the in-game fiction... we have to think about the agency of the players who are taking part in the game. Imagine any other game, and what elements allow players to be informed. Think of the board game Risk for example... you can see the entire board. You can see how many cards each player holds. You know they can't turn in a match until they have at least three cards, and that they must do so if they have five cards. You know how the dice work. There is very little that is hidden. This means that the player has agency. They can choose which way to move, who to attack, where to flee... and so on. We don't know who will win the game, we don't know how things will go for certain... but we know how the game works.

The idea of character agency muddies the clarity that we have when we talk about agency in other games. Set aside the characters and think about what the player needs for agency. It's not auto-success that they need. It's understanding of the way the game works. There's a tendency with RPGs to hide things from the players that would be hidden from the characters, and while sometimes this makes sense, when it comes to game mechanics, it's not a good idea if you care about agency. Tell them the DCs of ability checks, tell them the armor classes of their opponents, and so on.

Hiding gameplay information from the players is antithetical to agency.

Agency isn’t binary. It’s a spectrum. There are degrees of agency.

I'm not so sure. I know many call it a spectrum, and I understand why, but I don't know if that's the case. The more games I play that make an effort to actually provide agency, the more clear it is to me when a game lacks it.

And again, I don't make any value judgment about games that lack it. I have played and will continue to play those games as well. The only problem is when I expect a game of one type, and get another.

It’s possible for the DM to plot a series of occurrences in the world that form a plot line or storyline and for the players to be able to interact with in whichever way they choose. Players form the social contract which says they will interact in good faith and not decide to climb mountains in the next kingdom.

There’s plenty of agency in such circumstances. Certainly enough to provide a very satisfying RPG. Do players have complete control not over the world but yes over their characters.

But if they've agreed not to climb the mountains in the next kingdom, then how can you claim they have agency? They're limited in what's allowed. They need to stay away from the mountains and near the GM's plot. These two bits seem to be at odds.

 

[pemerton]

Do you wish to challenge your players, and engage them in a story that does not need to end in success, but the journey may be satisfying all the same?

Whether or not this goal of play is achieved has zero to do with player agency. Many players find railroaded play quite satisfying. That does not mean that they exercised agency. But generally, in successful railroaded play, the players know what they need to do because the GM sends the appropriate signals.

The information on the entire story was available if they searched for it, but even partial information was given by doing the quest itself.
Necomantic stuff was found in the crypt, at least tipping them off that something wasn't right about the family. At that point they had went to rob the house, but only for money, not information.

(There was a study with papers, and another desk upstairs with more papers/journals/info on it)

How are the players meant to know that they have to look for this information? Or to put it another way, how are the players meant to know that you are running a scenario which has the basic structure of a Call of Cthulhu scenario, rather than (say) Keep on the Borderlands or some other basic D&D-ish structure?

If the quest that is given is bring me the body, how are the players expected to work out that the real scenario is uncover the secrets of the necromantic family? These are not merely rhetorical questions - as you describe the game, in your OP and subsequent posts, the players didn't work these things out, and as a result the session was not entirely satisfactory. My advice remains: if you are going to run a CoC-esque railroad, you need to use techniques appropriate to that, of which the most fundamental is letting the players know what they need to do in order to make the scenario work. In CoC this is normally done by narrating things like mysterious letters turning up in the post, or noticing something in the waste paper bin just as the PCs are about to leave the room, or an urgent telegram from a mentor. In PF/D&D, you can do this by narrating things like visions or dreams sent by the gods, by having mysterious informants turn up on the PCs' doorstep, or even using omens and portents and other fantastic imagery.

I don't think agency is being violated when a player does not succeed.

No one disagrees with you on this point.

But players have no agency if everything that is at stake, every potential consequence, is decided by the GM.

I don't think anyone decided the stakes, besides the paladin ratting, but I'm not sure that is the same as setting the outcome.

You as GM decided the stakes - ie that the consequence of the paladin not interfering was completion of the ritual, hence bringing the curse to its culmination, hence all the other family being killed.

This has been my point about agency. I couldn't 'force' him to do the thing that would give him the outcome he 'wanted'. I didn't have the power to give him the good ending.

What consequence would flow from the ritual being performed was decided entirely by you.

The impression the player had that they were participating in a railroad was also established by you, as you "gave" the players a quest for their PCs. Having done that, my advice - as stated above, and also upthread - is follow through. Let the players know what they need to have their PCs do.

On the other hand, there are ways of avoiding railroading, if someone wishes to do so. That is the second line of advice that has been given in this thread, mostly by @darkbard, @hawkeyefan and me.

I only want my players to be entertained, and engaged. They were both of those things. But at the same time a couple of them felt a bit cheated, and I want to recognize if that is a failing on my part, or a growning pain/misunderstanding as roleplayers/DM.

Some of us are discussing this. We are suggesting a diagnosis as to why they felt "cheated" - ie that they were railroaded into an unsatisfactory outcome - and we are pointing to some techniques for avoiding that. In my case, I'm giving advice on how to run a satisfactory railroad - don't leave the players hanging and adrift and not knowing what they need to do next - and I'm also giving advice on alternatives to railroading.

It's your prerogative, obviously, to ignore what I and others are saying, and to continue to use the same techniques that you used before.

I am capable of presenting spontaneous situations on the spot. A 'whose line is it anyway' approach is ehh... In my opinion more suited to drunken nights where people just wanna have fun with 1 off characters. There is nothing wrong with that. The game is about fun after all

I'm not so sure the mechanics/rolls even matter in that kind of environment. In that environment I think it would be much better to just roll a d20 to determine success, and let people laugh at the whimsy of chance.

<snip>

Your approach seems to suggest that I should prepare/offer nothing, and instead come to the session with a few abstract ideas that would probably amount to them walking the town and randomly 'getting mugged' and then 'a person is in distress' or a 'cat is lodged up a tree, but it's actually a baby dweomeor cat and roll a check or it scratches you.'

You seem to think the contrast is either railroading or whose line is it anyway and other meaningless hijnks. This reinforces my impression that you have little or no familiarity with RPGs like Apocalypse World and the many games it has influenced (Dungeon World, Blades in the Dark etc), with Burning Wheel, with Sorcerer, with In A Wicked Age, etc.

Upthread I posted a fairly lengthy extract of Burning Wheel play. It did not resemble "whose line is it anyway". But it did not involve railroading either. There was no planning or prep, other than PC gen. But in two or three hours of play we had a cursed angel feather, various encounters with Jabal of the Cabal culminating in banishment from the city, an infiltration of Jabal's tower, and the PCs following a mysterious NPC onto a ship that was leaving town.

There are well-known techniques for making these games work - they are not all identical, but they share some fundamentals along the lines that @hawkeyefan has been setting out. Mechanical transparency to players is one of them. The players exercising a high degree of influence - either directly or indirectly - over what is at stake in action declarations is another. I think either @darkbard or I already linked to this recent thread saying a bit more about how to approach this sort of RPGing from the GM side: https://www.enworld.org/threads/advice-for-new-story-now-gms.698281/

I think getting too specific on the system bogs down the actual essence of discovering what is agency or not, because if agency is dependent on the game system, then agency is really an intangible and subjective thing.

The reason for talking about particular RPG systems is because agency is about shaping the shared fiction, and different RPGs provide illustrations of different techniques for doing that.

For instance, in Prince Valiant the GM decides whether or not a PC dies when their Brawn is reduced to zero by injury, and decides (if the PC doesn't die) how badly injured they are and hence how severe and lingering any incapacitation is. Straight away, therefore, we can see that in Prince Valiant the players do not exercise agency by managing hit point recovery like they do in D&D or PF. In Prince Valiant, that is all the domain of the GM.

Or consider Agon 2e, in which each scenario begins with the GM narrating the "signs of the gods" - certain omens - but it is the job of the players to decide, over the course of the session, what the meaning of those signs is. And their success in pleasing the gods is then determined by reference to the interpretation of the signs that they come up with. This also contrasts with D&D or PF, in which - at least most often - it is the GM who decides the meaning of divine omens.

The techniques that you have described in your OP - the GM provides a quest, the GM established secret backstory, the GM decides what happens when the players make choices for their PCs around the quest and the quest-giver - is one particular approach to RPGing, that became pretty widespread in the early to mid 80s and has remained pretty mainstream since then. But if we want to talk about high-player-agency play then we need to talk about alternatives to those techniques, as exemplified by RPGs that depart from that mainstream.

Wait, so you're saying PC agency is separate from real life player agency? I don't understand.

Player characters are imaginary beings, part of a shared imaginary world. Sometimes they have agency (eg when they are wandering around doing stuff). Sometimes they do not (eg when they are subject to domination magic). Sometimes their agency is compromised (eg when they are forced to do things at gunpoint). These are all elements of the shared, imagined, ficition.

Players are real people in the real world. They exercise agency, in RPGing, by contributing to the shaping of the shared fiction.

The most basic way they do that is by deciding what play will be about - eg in the case of the Torchbearer session that you referred to above, one player had determined that play would be about the missing ranger Glothfindel, and also about the significance of dreams; while another player had determined that play would be about dwarves and their fates, and how those are connected to explosives.

Then if I killed the cleric with a lightning bolt from Sarenrae for taking part in a ritual of Asmodeus when he stepped out the crypt...I'm only violating the agency of the imaginary character?

Who at the table established what is at stake? Who decided that a consequence that will flow from taking part in the ritual is being struck by divine lightning? If the answer is the GM, then there is no player agency present.

If it's the player, then there is agency present. As an example: in my 4e D&D campaign, one of the PCs was an invoker who served (among other gods) both the Raven Queen and Vecna. At one point, the PC placed the Eye of Vecna into his imp familiar. On a later occasion, the PCs destroyed the god Torog's Soul Abattoir, and this PC had to decide what to do with the flow of souls that were no longer being fed into the Abattoir. Vecna wanted them for himself. The player declared actions to achieve a different outcome - the souls would flow to the Raven Queen! At that point, I narrated that the imp familiar was struck lifeless, a result of Vecna exercising his power via his Eye. (Subsequently the PC regained control over his imp, and the Eye, by using a ritual to confine Vecna's power and then drawing a secret from Vecna's mind without Vecna realising it.)

In the scenario just described, the player did not experience any "violation" of agency. He had established the stakes, including the dual loyalty to the Raven Queen and Vecna. He had chosen to implant the Eye into his imp, thereby drawing on Vecna's power. He knew that, by choosing to have his PC send the flow of souls to the Raven Queen, he was going to upset Vecna. He also went on to conceive of and perform the rituals that restored his PC's control over his imp and over the Eye.

The scenario is one illustration of what it means for the players to establish the stakes of their action declarations.

if a player decided to wait outside the dungeon instead of going in, their agency would have been violated when inside the dungeon the rest of their party was trapped by some evil monster who succeeded in his plot?

How can we tell from the description you've given? Who established what was at stake? What role, if any, did the player have in that respect?

The quest is much like a dungeon. They can choose not to enter the dungeon, that's up to them. But saying they've lost agency because they enter the dungeon because it was presented is a bit of a reach.

<snip>

If they choose not to go on the quest, then I'd probably let them separate or explore the town in some abstract fashion.

If play will become aimless or pointless unless the players follow the GM's quest, that's a good sign that the play is low on player agency. Which then puts a significant onus on the GM to tell the players what they are meant to be doing.

In this respect, the quest is not like a dungeon, because a dungeon in D&D (or similar RPGS) establishes a whole series of default expectations and possible action declarations: inspecting the architecture, inspecting the furniture, looking for treasure guarded by denizens, etc.

The quest does not generate a comparable context for default action declarations. As your OP demonstrates.

 

[CreamCloud0]

There's a tendency with RPGs to hide things from the players that would be hidden from the characters, and while sometimes this makes sense, when it comes to game mechanics, it's not a good idea if you care about agency. Tell them the DCs of ability checks, tell them the armor classes of their opponents, and so on.

Hiding gameplay information from the players is antithetical to agency.

yeah no, hard disagree with this, knowing gameplay stats/information is entirely tangential to having player agency, knowing 'this action requires an athletics check of 18' has no influence on making your players actions matter and having meaningful consequences.

 

[pemerton]

yeah no, hard disagree with this, knowing gameplay stats/information is entirely tangential to having player agency, knowing 'this action requires an athletics check of 18' has no influence on making your players actions matter and having meaningful consequences.

Toss a coin and I'll tell you what happens allows someone's action to matter and to have meaningful consequences.

But it doesn't give that person agency over the game. All the decisions about what happens next are being made elsewhere.

Which is @hawkeyefan's point.

It is possible to have RPGing which has more agency than a blind coin toss, and that doesn't involve the players just making things up like "whose line is it anyway". But to talk about that sort of RPGing we need to talk about techniques, and systems, that go beyond state-of-the-art circa 1984.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think 'Ifs' are important, are they not? They do not interfere with agency.

An easy example. You as a person have agency (I hope but ignore the deeper pondering)
You can choose to drive somewhere, work, school, store etc.

You can reasonably expect that on the way to that location you have a non 0 chance to have car trouble, or to get hit in traffic etc, you might get your vehicle/bike damaged. You might be killed, but you as a person are largely not in control of these outcomes. You may be able to act to mitigate these outcomes, by perceiving a threat and attempting to avoid it, but you are not in absolute authority to the outcome.

This would be more relevant if the risks I was taking were more than a rounding error, and I knew that.

The problem with the examples you were using is that they're either well beyond a rounding error, or they're effectively zero, and the person doing them has no way to know which.

As such, again, they're a black box with no way to assess the risk involved.

Whether or not these outcomes were pre-determined to you as a person is unknown, but you feel you have agency all the same.

Actually, if something I can't assess harms or helps me, I consider my agency in it effectively irrelevant too. Essentially, my decision making matter not at all. That's not agency in any meaningful way.

Now suppose you were given omnipotent knowledge of the days outcomes, or perhaps even their chance, would that affect the way you proceed with the day, and would that remove something from the feeling of agency? Or would it feel more satisfying?

Depends on whether its completely deterministic or not. If it is, that destroys any meaningful agency just as much. If, on the other hand, it gives probabilities, that increase my agency; I can make assessment of value-to-risk that actually means something.

Stay home - 1% chance of death
Bike to work - 2% of breaking leg in accident.
Drive to work - 6% chance of wreck
Go jogging - 3% chance of death.

Would this table help make you feel like your choice was more meaningful? What if you knew the outcomes 'for sure' ahead of time?

See above.

Stay home - Nothing happens.
Bike to work - Nothing happens.
Drive to work - Car stalls and you run into a friend who helps.
Go jogging - Find a quarter.

Now you've established outcome, without risk. There are no 'ifs', so there can be no risk. And most of all there is no mystery.

Its not the presence of risk that's the issue. Its the fact the risk is, effectively, blind, or at best, so broad strokes that there's no useful way to assess it beyond "there's some degree of indeterminate risk to gain here".

 

[TheSword]

Hiding gameplay information from the players is antithetical to agency.



I'm not so sure. I know many call it a spectrum, and I understand why, but I don't know if that's the case. The more games I play that make an effort to actually provide agency, the more clear it is to me when a game lacks it.

And again, I don't make any value judgment about games that lack it. I have played and will continue to play those games as well. The only problem is when I expect a game of one type, and get another.



But if they've agreed not to climb the mountains in the next kingdom, then how can you claim they have agency? They're limited in what's allowed. They need to stay away from the mountains and near the GM's plot. These two bits seem to be at odds.

Again. I don’t believe a good level of agency is the ability to go anywhere and do anything. See No Man’s Sky to see just how hollow that kind of experience can be.

If I’m playing a game with other people part of the social contract is that I at least attempt to play reasonably with them. That is in itself a limitation but because it’s for the good of everyone we accept it. The same applies to players who agree to be interested the world and the things going on in it.

We wouldn’t accept one player deciding that they want to use the adventure gaming session to model what it’s like to run their real world dog grooming business, but we might allow them to run around with a mastiff henchman. That’s also a limitation but another reasonable and practical one.

Boundaries are good. Focusing in allows greater depth and detail.

Players agree to adventure in the parameters set by the DM, with an understanding that if they want to step outside of that then they need the DM to be willing and they need to give them time to prepare. That’s just respectful.

The players agree to stay in the Kingdom but the DM agrees to fill that area with engaging, interesting stuff to see and do… social contract.