D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[hawkeyefan]

I’ve snipped your post up a bit, not in any attempt to change the context, but rather to focus on specific things that jumped out at me.

I am trying very hard to be conciliatory in my approach. I think I have done a lot of reading across the aisle in terms of playstye and defition. But I also think there are places that demand push back (like if someone says controlling a characters thoughts and actions aren't agency if losing them area product of gameplay). This feels like a very athletic argument to me

If I as a player choose to put something on the line… if I knowingly take a risk… and it doesn’t go my way… isn’t that part of play? Is that a reduction in my ability to play the game? Or is it a consequence for play not going my way?

But I am largely just doing it to challenge a questionable defitnion that pretty much diminishes the amount of agency operating in multiple style of play in favor of another set of styles.

The “questionable definition” you’re talking about is the actual definition of the word.

And no one is “diminishing the amount of agency operating in multiple styles of play”. I don’t even know how you can draw that conclusion. My posts have not… can not… change the amount of player agency available in your or anyone else’s game.

But I do think it is also true that by and large, when players say "I don't feel like I have enough agency in this campaign" they mean their ability to control what their character is doing in the setting, where they go, what goals the party is setting, is limited.

I think it is a very common thing for players who somehow lose control of their characters in D&D or similar systems to not like it and to describe it as a loss of agency. I’m not saying that’s wrong, exactly… I’m saying that I accept it as a colloquialism… as the phrase that’s used to describe the feeling. But I think it really depends on the context.

I think that when a game only allows player agency in the form of character autonomy, it makes more sense to see it that way. I mean, if you decide to go against Strahd, there’s a chance you’ll be charmed. You’re making an informed choice to face him and risk being charmed. So is that really a loss of agency if it happens? Not really.

But…in most games, a player isn’t generally putting their character conception on the line… that’s not what play is about. Any such loss of control is generally lamp-shaded as magic. This way, when the character shows fear of the dragon, we know it’s not because he’s not brave… he’s being influenced by some supernatural quality of the creature. Don’t worry everyone… Sir Felgar isn’t actually a coward!

But in a game where players ARE doing that…where they are putting their conception ofthe character on the line… then I think it’s different.

It’s an expectation of play. And it’s offset by the fact that the player has more say, beyond their character’s actions, in what play is about. They make choices during character creation that the GM is actively supposed to use in play. Not optionally… not at their discretion… they are what play is meant to be about.

So… I make a PC who’s out for revenge. We all know the story… The Count of Monte Crisco, Kill Bill, Best Served Cold, Hamlet, and on and on… the GM is obliged to make play about that. And wondering how far someone will go for revenge is a pretty common theme in these stories. So when a character gets to a point where we’ve perhaps reached some new level of fury… some line they’ve not yet crossed… as the player, I don’t get to just decide… the dice play a part and then I play the character per the results.

Now… can that really be described as a loss of agency given the significant influence I have had on play as a player? I’m not exploring the GM’s setting, I’m not on an adventure path, I’m not dungeon delving… I’m playing through events that are central to my character. Play is about my character and finding out more about him.

That is a level of agency typically absent from the kinds of games you’ve been describing. So when things don’t go my way and something I don’t want happens… I don’t look at it as a loss of agency. I look at it as adversity… as growth… as consequence… as meaningful and impactful.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Ah! OK, then; planning ahead can have some mechanical benefit. Good to see this.

The 'can' or 'cannot' in that sentence is what I've been trying to get answered. Thanks!

Still, though, in the specific catch-the-blood example from pemerton's game the player shouldn't have to roll to find a container if he's got one in his belt pouch, should he?

Right on. No, if he had one in his belt pouch, he wouldn't have had to roll for the character to find it. If getting the blood is important, there'd still need to be a roll of some sort. Somewhere up thread, I think @pemerton suggested an Agility test to catch the blood would be one possibility in the scene as framed, but it'd come down to how the GM set the scene and what actions the player declares to know precisely what rolls need to be made.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Incorrectomundo!!! The players had full ability to do anything they wanted. They chose to do nothing. That's 100% character agency.

Then all games have equal character agency! That makes it quite a useful metric!

 

[Maxperson]

My PC dying seems like a thing about my character.

character as in moral qualities. That seemed to be the context to me.

 

[Maxperson]

I respond to what people post.

And ignore context from the post you are reading, and from other posts, which is probably why you mischaracterize folks so much.

 

[Maxperson]

Then all games have equal character agency! That makes it quite a useful metric!

No. Yours do not have as much as mine, as you use player agency quite a bit and have different play priorities. You can only total 100%, so it's not possible for you to have as much character agency as my game, since I only use the one type.

Edit: You're also evading. Who said that one type of agency is greater than two?

 

[Kromanjon]

Dude. The first hit after the AI stuff says "Player agency is.." the second says, "First off? Character agency is..."

Don't know what to say if you couldn't see that.

First off, no need to be rude. Perhaps the algorithm works differently based on search history or something.

Second, all I'm saying is that there are a lot of other articles that don't categorize agency into the two factions like you state.

Thirdly, as I couldn't find what you're claiming to find perhaps links would be helpful, like the one I provided that disputed your statement.

Fourthly, the more important point might be that the persons your discussing with didn't seem to agree with your categorization of agency which was what I was trying to say. If so, I don't really see how it matters that you found a blog or two agreeing with you.

 

[hawkeyefan]

No. Yours do not have as much as mine, as you use player agency quite a bit and have different play priorities. You can only total 100%, so it's not possible for you to have as much character agency as my game, since I only use the one type.

Edit: You're also evading. Who said that one type of agency is greater than two?

Evading? I don’t even know what you’re on about. I was, I thought, clearly joking in my last couple of posts to you.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What are you getting at here Micah?

The post were responding to was meant to respond to questions about where the personal part of the game comes in and answered that it comes from the overall approach, the way we do our game setup, the way we approach situation/scene framing. That the mechanics sit on top of the craft, reinforce it, support it. I'm more than happy to discuss how we do this with anyone who cares. Emotional vulnerability in roleplaying (both in genre enforcing games like Vampire and in Narrativist games) is a personal interest of mine.

Here I was speaking to Narrativism.

Scene framing or at least setting is addressed in most 2d20 games, L5R 5e, most iterations of Vampire, etc.
Most games don't talk about reward cycles - they just offer them and how to propel play using the reward cycle on offer.
Level of myth is mostly a term used in online discussions. Games just tell you how prep should look for them. I used it primarily to address differences between games.

Are you trying to say I should not talk about these things?

No, I'm suggesting that these kinds of terms pop up in discussions, books, and everything else for non-traditional games far more than the other kind, and if it's all game design jargon, why is that?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I've seen a number I'd call that that spend some time on at least the latter two. They're pretty basic concepts of GMing in many cases after all. ("Level of myth" is a particular term-of-art for some sorts of Forge derived games but the other two can be used to describe process that lands pretty commonly in Trad games, and taking some time to describe how to do it (in the former) and what it incentivizes (in the latter) isn't always considered wasted space.)

They can be used, certainly. But are they? What games? I'm genuinely curious. No game I play or own uses these terms.