Do Random Tables Reduce Player Agency?

[bloodtide]

Says who since when? I'm pretty sure that's not how most actual game designers view it?

Well, I can't speak for the game designers. But any change in the game will be seen as a direct attack on player agency. The players can't have agency if the GM "just changes" things on them.

Why are your game world's NPCs such liars?

Well, I run a Hard Fun, Unfair, Unbalanced and No Player Agency game.....

But for the bigger question: again random encounters do just 'pop' in out of thin air. The NPC can say "whatever", but then the dice are rolled...and "pop' monster.

It seems like the argument is: either I have perfect knowledge of all possible consequences to all possible actions and can selectively choose which to engage with and which to avoid…or I don’t have agency as a player.

It’s a bollocks argument. But that’s what this all reads like.

This is the basis of Player Agency: Making informed decisions.

A random table takes this agency away from the players. The information does not even exist in the game for them to find out.

 

[Larnievc]

I had a thought and couldn't find an appropriate existing thread.

Does the use of random tables in play reduce player agency in gameplay? I am specifically talking about generative tables used to provide inspiration or even outright game elements to the GM when the PCs explore an otherwise undefined area.

Allow me to use an example: the PCs are heading from Southron to Northlund and can choose to take either the long but safe road or the faster but more dangerous road. Importantly, they don't know the mechanics behind those two road choices.

The rules (GM developed or otherwise) say that the chances of a negative encounter are double on the fast road -- but literally nothing else is defined before rolling.

If the PCs only have the barest information about potential difficulties -- thd fast road is "more dangerous" whatever that means-- are they being robbed of agency specifically as compared to a more carefully crafted route and potential dangers?

Let's assume that the description given to the PCs is equivalent, but yhe potential table roll results are much more varied from a challenge perspective than the designed routes.

What do you think?

You never have perfect knowledge about the future. I don’t see how a had crafted set of routes is any different from a random set.

 

[Lanefan]

To me, this seems to show that you don't have control over who uses the laundry - which is to say, that is not an area of your life in respect of which you exercise a high degree of agency.

And neither does the character (or the player) have control over what's at the bridge at any given time.

 

[overgeeked]

Are they a participant in the game (in which case it feels like it is something to talk about) or are they merely an umpire or referee?

Yeah. That’s a weird one. The referee controls literally everything except the PCs, so saying the referee has no agency is a real WTF moment.

 

[Lanefan]

Player Agency. For the players to have any agency in the game things must remain static.

And bang goes the concept of a living breathing game world.....

 

[Lanefan]

Are they a participant in the game (in which case it feels like it is something to talk about) or are they merely an umpire or referee?

Even though it's an "or" question, the answer is yes.

 

[overgeeked]

And bang goes the concept of a living breathing game world.....

Exactly.

The argument somehow got even worse and more ridiculous. So in addition to perfect knowledge (which the characters can’t have) and perfect control over the outcomes of their actions (which the characters can’t have), now the entire world has to stand stock still and wait for the players to act otherwise the players somehow lack agency. Nonsense argument is nonsense.

 

[Reynard]

Are they a participant in the game (in which case it feels like it is something to talk about) or are they merely an umpire or referee?

If "agency" is the ability to affect outcomes, talking about it in relationship to the GM (again, in traditional RPGs) is meaningless since the GM is responsible for all the outcomes. That the GM lets the dice decide on certain outcomes based on the game mechanics doesn't mean they lose agency, because the GM always has the authority to determine there was, in fact, some other outcome.

 

[aramis erak]

Well, I can't speak for the game designers. But any change in the game will be seen as a direct attack on player agency. The players can't have agency if the GM "just changes" things on them.

only by the paranoid.

 

[aramis erak]

If "agency" is the ability to affect outcomes, talking about it in relationship to the GM (again, in traditional RPGs) is meaningless since the GM is responsible for all the outcomes. That the GM lets the dice decide on certain outcomes based on the game mechanics doesn't mean they lose agency, because the GM always has the authority to determine there was, in fact, some other outcome.

Only by those who don't feel bound by rules.