Is "GM Agency" A Thing?

[Hussar]

You (the players) don't explore the world you built. Your characters do.

If it's important to the players to experience an unknown environment, then they won't want the level of agency that Hussar is advocating for.

The Forgotten Realms is well defined in source books and expansive fiction that a lot of players are familiar with. It's perfectly feasible that (some) players can still have exciting adventures in that setting, despite the familiarilty. Similarly, players (some of them) can have exciting and engaging adventures in a world that they help define either before or during play.

And, even then, that's not really an issue as well. Sure, you and the other players had a hand in building the world, but, good grief, it's a WORLD. There's an awful lot of white space still left over for exploration.

 

[Aldarc]

I’m not overstating my point.

Collaborative world building in DnD especially does not exist at all. There’s virtually no support for it. Wow, you get to talk about your hometown that the dm is under no obligation to actually use. Ten thousand Man With No Name characters I’ve seen over the years is evidence to me how much weight other dms put on backgrounds.

I mean good grief, you like published settings. Does that mean there is no exploration in your games? Obviously not.

Why would having the players build stuff be any different?

It would be nice if there was at least official support for town/city generation with player input as part of character creation: see Beyond the Wall & Other Adventures and Through Sunken Lands.

 

[aramis erak]

Are they creating their own parts of the world secretly? Because otherwise they basically do know everything.

You continue to overstate your point, I suspect because you prefer more collaborative worldbuilding, and believing that player disengagement is caused by a lack of it helps support that preference.

I do it too, it happens.

Note that the world statistics in Traveller are also available to PCs in setting - at least in the OTU. Both a game artifice and and an in-setting categorization...
So, unless the game is focused upon exploration, letting players do the gen isn't a big issue. I've done so.

 

[aramis erak]

How so?

What are your goals as a GM in your game?

I often set short term goals for NPCs, but only advance them when PCs are in view of them. Or, rarely, I've declared a Cutscene and done something that had been foreshadowed. Especially if they ignored the foreshadowing.
Sometimes, I'll instead set a timeline and then adjust it for player interaction with it.
It's not a goal pursued in the same way a player's is, but it's something for players to interfere with.

In certain games - most especially Blood and Honor (John Wick), My characters have all the motivations and goals they'd have if PCs... but less screen time. And operate exactly like PCs in every other way. (Including mutability if not full sheet at introduction.) This does change the nature of the GM relationship... since I'm only allowed one character to roll in a risk ... combat excepted. It's a totally different kind of RPG, and it has very different needs and niches. And allows a much more PVGM approach. As well as more PVP approaches.

Likewise, in Burning Empires, it's side vs side, and the GM is part of one side. Often the whole of one side - it's designed for 3 vs 3 characters as key movers in the story, with the the setups being by number of players

Players:	GM+1	GM+2	GM+3	GM+4	GM+5	GM+6
Side A	Player with 3 PCs	1 player with 2 PCs 1 player with 1 PC	3 players with 1 PC each	3 players with 1 PC each	3 players with 1 PC each	3 players with 1 PC each
Side B	GM with 3 key NPCs	GM with three key NPCs	GM with three key NPCs	1 player with 1 PC GM with 2 key NPCs	2 players with 1 PC each GM with 1 key NPC	3 players with 1 PC each GM only plays minor NPCs

I ran with 3 players... I was playing 3 PCs, and doing the task resolution supervision. Resistance to my tasks was done by showing the players the standards and them agreeing on the Ob (target number, for the BW impaired)... Just remember: the default Ob is 2 successes...

 

[Hussar]

It would be nice if there was at least official support for town/city generation with player input as part of character creation: see Beyond the Wall & Other Adventures and Through Sunken Lands.

See this is the kind of thing I mean. Sure if the dm wants to do all the work go ahead. No problem. But there is virtually no support for dms who would like to dm but don’t feel like it should be an unpaid part time job.

 

[AnotherGuy]

None of this explains how you explore a world you built.

In a D&D game that was eventually abandoned, the DM asked us each player to create a concept of one of the demon lords for this homebrew setting. Only name and concept.

I've already mentioned that due to the PCs staying some months between adventures in Baldur's Gate I let them, between sessions, create 5 NPCs with which their PCs had good, negative or neutral relationships (up to them).

It is extremely easy to implement, and some players actually rise to the opportunity, some don't.
There are other things my players have created within the game through character proses on our Obsidian Portal site.
Sure, as DM I can have final say, and I do, as I lean traditional in my approach but it is not difficult to let players derive a name for a rowdy tavern they frequent, a description of a clergyman with whom they have heated theological discussions with, a street urchin they financially support or a stray dog they've adopted.

There is a vast swathe of style of play between say a game by Lanefan and game by Pemerton. And to be clear, I'm not picking on these two posters, I'd probably enjoy a game by either of them.
The most important question at the end of the day will be, will YOUR table enjoy having a little creative input besides their input on their characters. I personally don't mind sharing some of the creative input even if I do not do it a lot.

The last time I allowed a PC to have creative input was on a magical item. I did not like the item within the DMG as I felt the mechanics did not fit thematically (player agreed) and so I changed it up offering two possible options for the item and each was mechanically different. I let the player select what they would prefer - interestingly they selected the more traditional concept.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Collaborate world building has its advantages and drawbacks, but I think it definitely is something D&D should have as a suggested option in DMG and offer some advice. But 5e DMG is pretty terrible, so it is not a surprise that it is not helpful about this either.

In my personal experience collaborative world building works best, when there already is some established (either published or homebrew) framework within which the participants collaborate. I have a good experiences from a Glorantha game a while back, where we created our tribe/village and their immediate surrounding, including some NPCs, beliefs, relationships etc together. It anchored characters to the world, and made them feel part of the same community. But we didn't create the whole world, we just defined our small corner of it.

Similarly we recently created our characters and gang for Blades in the Dark. We haven't played it yet, but the process established the place of characters in the world and gave them some existing relationship. But again we worked within confines of established framework, criminals in the city of Duskvol.

These are the sort of methods I actually would like to try to use in my own games more, but I still want to retain control of the actual broader world. World building is very important to me, and the reason the game is happening in the first place is probably because I had some idea for a setting or interpretation of the setting.

My experiences of collaborative building of whole worlds is not that good. I feel that unless there is a participant who is really willing to push with their vision it often ends up as some sort of designed by committee generic fantasy world. Then a gain, a lot of published worlds feel like that to me too, and if that all you need for your games then go for it!

 

[Hussar]

/snip

My experiences of collaborative building of whole worlds is not that good. I feel that unless there is a participant who is really willing to push with their vision it often ends up as some sort of designed by committee generic fantasy world. Then a gain, a lot of published worlds feel like that to me too, and if that all you need for your games then go for it!

I can totally see that. I wonder though if it's partially just a lack of experience. Most players don't have much, if any, experience with that level of collaboration and it does take a lot of guidance to get the players (and the DM for that matter) to the point where it becomes more comfortable.

Although, really, at the end of the day, I would probably more expect this sort of thing from something like DM's Guild than WotC. Although, again, to be fair, if you look back over the history of D&D, they've made forays into alternative formats from time to time. I would LOVE to actually see that board game they made for the old Dragonlance Modules actually be used as a template for campaign design, for example. Back in 3e, as well, in the PHB 2 factions rules, they gave the players a LOT of leeway to control the campaign world at a very macro level.

I would really like to see more of that sort of thing brought into 5e.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Note that the world statistics in Traveller are also available to PCs in setting - at least in the OTU. Both a game artifice and and an in-setting categorization...
So, unless the game is focused upon exploration, letting players do the gen isn't a big issue. I've done so.

I agree. But exploration is what we're talking about. In any case, the method @Hussar described definitely demands a higher degree of investment by the players, as all are expected to create worldbuilding elements in prose form (a few paragraphs I believe), and many players IME simply don't have interest in doing that. So another point against their "players don't care because they secretly want more power than that nasty DM will give them" theory. I just don't buy it as a significant feeling amongst enough players to be relevant to the degree they think it is.

 

[Micah Sweet]

See this is the kind of thing I mean. Sure if the dm wants to do all the work go ahead. No problem. But there is virtually no support for dms who would like to dm but don’t feel like it should be an unpaid part time job.

Isn't that what published adventures are for? There are meant primarily to be run more or less as is correct? If they can't be, maybe they should just make better adventures for the type of DM you describe?

Also, interesting you've gone from this being a problem for player engagement to it being a problem for overworked potential DMs. I assume you're now saying it's both?