Do Random Tables Reduce Player Agency?

[the Jester]

This doesn't look to violate player agency to me. They are free to make a choice that has a meaningful impact on the game, even if they don't know exactly how that impact manifests.

 

[pemerton]

A further thought:

Are we talking about agency in respect of colour/flavour text? Then if the players choose the swamp road rather than the desert road, it would seem rude to present encounters with dust-themed stuff rather than slimy mud stuff. But that seems like a pretty modest sort of agency.

If we're talking about agency in respect of meaningful game outcomes, then then choosing fast-and-more-dangerou road A over slow-and-safer B is meaningless until we know what's at stake in the choice. And given that D&D will almost always end up in a fight at some point, the fact that on path A your fight will come after 2 in-game days, while on path B it will take 4 in-game days, doesn't seem to matter (again, that's mere colour). So the choice of A vs B again itself looks like mere colour. At least until we have some understanding of why it matters that the PCs get to a certain place in a certain time.

 

[pemerton]

This doesn't look to violate player agency to me. They are free to make a choice that has a meaningful impact on the game, even if they don't know exactly how that impact manifests.

If player agency= the players' choice prompts the GM to say something different from what they might otherwise have said, then almost any action resolution procedure is consistent with player agency!

EDIT:
Suppose the players' choice matters in the sense that, depending on what they choose, the GM will say X or will say Y. It does not follow that the players have agency in any very thick sense.

Consider, for instance, an example of the players looking for something. Suppose that the players know that this thing is in a particular house, but not where. And so they start a search of the house applying standard D&D map-and-key rules. Depending whether they get lucky and choose the right place first, or whether they get unlucky and choose the right place last, they may have an easy or a hard time of it. But this doesn't look like it has much to do with agency. It's mere luck.

That's why classic D&D has spells like Detect Magic, Locate Object etc - these give the players the ability to acquire the knowledge to make agential decisions, of how to solve the optimisation problem of getting the thing that's in the house with the least risk/cost (however that is to be measured in the particular context of play).

The ranges of those spells also tell us something about the imaginary architectural contexts they were supposed to be used in, when they were invented.

 

[Reynard]

.If we're talking about agency in respect of meaningful game outcomes, then then choosing fast-and-more-dangerou road A over slow-and-safer B is meaningless until we know what's at stake in the choice.

You are right. I did not say so in the OP, but the presumption can be that there is some sort of time pressure. But part and parcel with that is that there are potential lasting consequences from.encounters. so if there is a cost to arriving late for the coronation (or whatever) but also a potential cost of "losing" a dangerous fight, there are actual choices to be made even if the players don't know the exact probabilities of various potential outcomes.

 

[the Jester]

If player agency= the players' choice prompts the GM to say something different from what they might otherwise have said, then almost any action resolution procedure is consistent with player agency!

If the players have the same encounters preselected regardless of the route they take, the DM is removing their agency. If there is no way to learn more about the choice between the two roads, the DM is reducing (but not removing) their agency. If the pcs are able to research/divine/whatever to learn more before making their choice, their agency is being... honored? Enhanced?

Anyway, I'm comfortable with the players' choice prompting the GM to "say something different than they might otherwise have said" being a, though not the, metric to determine whether their agency is preserved, reduced, or what have you.

 

[overgeeked]

Does the use of random tables in play reduce player agency in gameplay?

No. Of course not.

 

[pemerton]

You are right. I did not say so in the OP, but the presumption can be that there is some sort of time pressure. But part and parcel with that is that there are potential lasting consequences from.encounters. so if there is a cost to arriving late for the coronation (or whatever) but also a potential cost of "losing" a dangerous fight, there are actual choices to be made even if the players don't know the exact probabilities of various potential outcomes.

My response to this is set out in posts 10 and 12. I still don't see how the players have significant agency until more information is provided, so they can apply some sort of rational decision rule.

Once the players have that information, it becomes an optimisation problem.

If the players know that random tables are involved, that changes the shape of the optimisation problem and hence might affect what counts as the optimal choice (for instance, it might increase the applicability of maximin); but it doesn't change the basic structure of the situation as being an optimisation problem.

 

[Tonguez]

As presented the choice of long but safe road or the faster but more dangerous road is pretty neutral and does not in itself rob players of agency.

Now if you decided that safe road was a Royal highway through apple orchards inhabited by friendly pixies and a 1 in 20 chance of meeting a grumpy goblin v the dangerous road through a fetid swamp with a 50% chance of being hunted by the resident black dragon then you have denied players some important information, but thats a design choice even with a random table

 

[Reynard]

As presented the choice of long but safe road or the faster but more dangerous road is pretty neutral and does not in itself rob players of agency.

Now if you decided that safe road was a Royal highway through apple orchards inhabited by friendly pixies and a 1 in 20 chance of meeting a grumpy goblin v the dangerous road through a fetid swamp with a 50% chance of being hunted by the resident black dragon then you have denied players some important information, but thats a design choice even with a random table

So, to be clear, are you saying that the players have to know what the probable encounters might be for the choice to be meaningful?

 

[UngainlyTitan]

If the information the PCs get is only that one path is likely to be less dangerous than the other I don't see how rolling on the appropriate table can be an impingement on player agency. The GM rolling on the same table no matter what path the PCs take would probably be.

Why, if he rolls twice for the more dangerous route for each roll on the less dangerous route? what is the effective difference?