D&D General Renamed Thread: "The Illusion of Agency"

I think when it comes to player agency we have to be careful to not use the dice as a scapegoat through which we step on player agency. These decisions are often followed by the odd statement of "well the dice..." But really the decision is traceable back to the DM, when they chose to roll the dice instead of making the decision based on player actions. The dice in these cases are simply a shield for blame. A tool used to recuse oneself of responsibility for stepping on the player's agency.

This applies to combat and skill rolls. If you default to a DC without regard for player preparation, and than claim "well that's how the dice falls," you are stepping on player agency. The agency issue comes from your disregard for player actions prior to the roll. The fact that the dice came up fail, is simply irrelevant. Player agency was stepped on a step before that.

This can be expanded a bit. If you have a skill check to see if a player remembers something from the world's lore, the information you give them should be weighted towards the outcome of the actions taken. If a wizard takes meticulious notes for days and weeks on end, having them fail to recall anything because they rolled poorly is likely encroaching on player agency. You are allowing the dice to disregard player actions. Instead a sliding scale of success could be used to give a reward for the player action while still adjusting it to match the dice outcome. This way the player's actions have an effect while still allowing the dice to play a role if desired.

The same comes up if you randomly assign combat. Depending on method, this could be rolling to see if there is combat or rolling to see what the enemy will be within that combat. If the dice roll is the sole determinate of the result, your decision to roll it is stepping on agency assuming any prior player action. This is because the decision both for whether combat happens, and for what the combat includes enemy wise, should be made with the player actions in mind.

Simply ignoring a lit fire because the dice chose the fire-adverse enemy from a table is stepping on player agency. It is dismissing the action of lighting that fire because "well the dice." But the actual violation of player agency happened prior to the decision to roll the dice. This means that the DM chose to violate player agency by not adjusting the table to forgo fire adverse creatures.

I hope this makes sense. In my opinion, DMs have a responsibility to set the dice up to respect player agency. Not doing that is the DM choosing to step on that same agency. The decision to roll dice doesnt remove the underlying issue or make the DM impervious to blame. In these cases, the DM is simply using the dice as a scape goat.
 

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This is a really tough one, and I've never found a solution to it that I like.

The reality is that humans suck at detecting lies from people they don't know well. (And apparently cops who think they are good at it tend to be worse than average.). The only effective way to find out if a stranger is lying is to remember (or record) everything they say and then try to get them tangled up in their own lies.

So....in terms of the game I would think this would mean to know something about your NPC, and then try to get them to lie about something you know the truth about.

But, "Can I tell if he's lying?" My answer is, "Do you have a 2nd level paladin spell?" (No, I'm not actually that snarky.)

Long thread, and there might be more on this but:

Yes IRL most humans are terrible at detecting lies. BUT:

in FICTION there are many examples of people who are REALLY good at it and D&D is NOT real life.

I would much rather have some people be actually skilled at this than, yet again, rely on - just use magic.
 

Long thread, and there might be more on this but:

Yes IRL most humans are terrible at detecting lies. BUT:

in FICTION there are many examples of people who are REALLY good at it and D&D is NOT real life.

I would much rather have some people be actually skilled at this than, yet again, rely on - just use magic.
Most humans are also terrible at surviving a 100 foot fall.

In 5e, that's only 10d6 damage. 35 on average. Even a 10 Con Wizard can survive that (on average) by 9th level. With just 12 Con and three more levels, they can survive it outright, since it can't do more than 60 damage. (12 Con Wizard has 7 HP at level 1 and gains 55 HP from the following eleven levels, total 7+55=62.) Even at 10 Con, it's a guaranteed survival at level 15 (6+14x4=62).

What a person is capable of IRL is often only tenuously related to what a D&D character is capable of in their world. Just another example of how the presumption that everything not otherwise specified must work like real life is riddled with holes.
 

I think when it comes to player agency we have to be careful to not use the dice as a scapegoat through which we step on player agency. These decisions are often followed by the odd statement of "well the dice..." But really the decision is traceable back to the DM, when they chose to roll the dice instead of making the decision based on player actions. The dice in these cases are simply a shield for blame. A tool used to recuse oneself of responsibility for stepping on the player's agency.

This applies to combat and skill rolls. If you default to a DC without regard for player preparation, and than claim "well that's how the dice falls," you are stepping on player agency. The agency issue comes from your disregard for player actions prior to the roll. The fact that the dice came up fail, is simply irrelevant. Player agency was stepped on a step before that.

This can be expanded a bit. If you have a skill check to see if a player remembers something from the world's lore, the information you give them should be weighted towards the outcome of the actions taken. If a wizard takes meticulious notes for days and weeks on end, having them fail to recall anything because they rolled poorly is likely encroaching on player agency. You are allowing the dice to disregard player actions. Instead a sliding scale of success could be used to give a reward for the player action while still adjusting it to match the dice outcome. This way the player's actions have an effect while still allowing the dice to play a role if desired.

The same comes up if you randomly assign combat. Depending on method, this could be rolling to see if there is combat or rolling to see what the enemy will be within that combat. If the dice roll is the sole determinate of the result, your decision to roll it is stepping on agency assuming any prior player action. This is because the decision both for whether combat happens, and for what the combat includes enemy wise, should be made with the player actions in mind.

Simply ignoring a lit fire because the dice chose the fire-adverse enemy from a table is stepping on player agency. It is dismissing the action of lighting that fire because "well the dice." But the actual violation of player agency happened prior to the decision to roll the dice. This means that the DM chose to violate player agency by not adjusting the table to forgo fire adverse creatures.

I hope this makes sense. In my opinion, DMs have a responsibility to set the dice up to respect player agency. Not doing that is the DM choosing to step on that same agency. The decision to roll dice doesnt remove the underlying issue or make the DM impervious to blame. In these cases, the DM is simply using the dice as a scape goat.
I think these are good points. I definitely agree that if the player is taking pains to set up a situation to their advantage by describing what they do, or how they're mitigating a risk, clearly the player is trying to engage with the game by saying "I don't just want the dice to fall as they may." In those cases, I'm on the side of the DC is reduced, the player rolls with advantage, or maybe they just flat out succeed (DM fiat).
 

Most humans are also terrible at surviving a 100 foot fall.

In 5e, that's only 10d6 damage. 35 on average. Even a 10 Con Wizard can survive that (on average) by 9th level. With just 12 Con and three more levels, they can survive it outright, since it can't do more than 60 damage. (12 Con Wizard has 7 HP at level 1 and gains 55 HP from the following eleven levels, total 7+55=62.) Even at 10 Con, it's a guaranteed survival at level 15 (6+14x4=62).

What a person is capable of IRL is often only tenuously related to what a D&D character is capable of in their world. Just another example of how the presumption that everything not otherwise specified must work like real life is riddled with holes.
This is why, whenever this comes up, I always advocate people need to stop looking to "real life" and look to fiction and myth. That's MUCH more appropriate to D&D, imo.

Many disagree!
 

So this really kind of reminds me of Dungeon World, in which if you outright fail, there will be a negative consequence and it’s up to the GM to determine what that is. But the difference there is that even spells can fail. The system is the same for everyone regardless of ability.

I agree - the portcullis needs to have a point to existing otherwise passing it by is wasting time, potentially wasting player resources unnecessarily, and they should just move past it without issue. It should be protecting something that the players can’t easily access otherwise. If they can’t access it at all without passing the portcullis, it shouldn’t be material to the adventure itself but maybe it’s a magic item they don’t get or a side NPC they don’t meet.

Right, my example was a white room to just draw a contrast between options available to a barbarian to proactively declare & a wizard to proactively declare when it comes to obstacle bypassing.

Let's set some stakes: there's two owl bears chasing them (dire owl bears? whatever) - the barbarian just stole some eggs for an alchemist back in town. The wizard sees the bars and bamfs through. What options do you allow the barbarian to take, and what in the system says to do so? (Some scattered potential options off the top of my head:

a) something like "my prep says this a rusted portcullis sealed shut with age. It's a DC18 strength check to slam it up, or with a DC15 passive perception (or active check) the party can spot a lever in the corner. It's a DC15 strength check to snap it up"
b) "uhhh, yeah cool - you want to what, try and lever it up? what's your strength again? 20? heck ya, that thing can't stop you. You heft it up and off you go, the owlbears in pursuit."
c) "um, yeah, ok, roll athletics (mentally uses the default DC15 for standard checks)"
d) "Right, you skid to a halt in front of the gate - you can hear the owl bears bellowing as their claws skid off the stone floor. ....oh, yeah, ok so you see the gate and what might be some old machinery in the corner? ok yeah, looking close at the machinery you can see its like old levers and stuff - probably to seal the gate from this side. rusty as heck. Yeah, you can totally see if that lever will open, um - strength check please? but they're going to be on you in a second if you fail."
e) "Right, yeah, roll +STR but I'll tell you right now an obvious consequence if you don't pick "it doesn't take long" they're gonna be on you."

Rough attempt to do:
  • Classic AP deisgn
  • Permissive DMing based on passive
  • Ad-hoc dice rolling
  • something approximating OSR where the ref felt an ability check was required
  • DW: the player narrates that they're Bending Bars, Lifting Gates and the move triggers based off the fiction.
 

Long thread, and there might be more on this but:

Yes IRL most humans are terrible at detecting lies. BUT:

in FICTION there are many examples of people who are REALLY good at it and D&D is NOT real life.

I would much rather have some people be actually skilled at this than, yet again, rely on - just use magic.

In addition to spells, I could see a class or subclass (or Feat?) that gives players a mechanical ability to detect lies, as long as it is clearly defined how that works.

That said, I don't think it's a good idea to enable general purpose, available-to-everybody detection of lies without it having a cost (such as a spell slot, or a meaningful consequence of failure if you try it and fail).
 

In addition to spells, I could see a class or subclass (or Feat?) that gives players a mechanical ability to detect lies, as long as it is clearly defined how that works.

That said, I don't think it's a good idea to enable detection of lies without it having a cost (such as a spell slot, or a meaningful consequence of failure if you try it and fail).
This is 100% on the DM. Failure to detect a lie means the character is convinced they are being told the truth. If there is no consequence there, that is the fault of the scenario.
 

I think when it comes to player agency we have to be careful to not use the dice as a scapegoat through which we step on player agency. These decisions are often followed by the odd statement of "well the dice..." But really the decision is traceable back to the DM, when they chose to roll the dice instead of making the decision based on player actions. The dice in these cases are simply a shield for blame. A tool used to recuse oneself of responsibility for stepping on the player's agency.

This applies to combat and skill rolls. If you default to a DC without regard for player preparation, and than claim "well that's how the dice falls," you are stepping on player agency. The agency issue comes from your disregard for player actions prior to the roll. The fact that the dice came up fail, is simply irrelevant. Player agency was stepped on a step before that.

This can be expanded a bit. If you have a skill check to see if a player remembers something from the world's lore, the information you give them should be weighted towards the outcome of the actions taken. If a wizard takes meticulious notes for days and weeks on end, having them fail to recall anything because they rolled poorly is likely encroaching on player agency. You are allowing the dice to disregard player actions. Instead a sliding scale of success could be used to give a reward for the player action while still adjusting it to match the dice outcome. This way the player's actions have an effect while still allowing the dice to play a role if desired.

The same comes up if you randomly assign combat. Depending on method, this could be rolling to see if there is combat or rolling to see what the enemy will be within that combat. If the dice roll is the sole determinate of the result, your decision to roll it is stepping on agency assuming any prior player action. This is because the decision both for whether combat happens, and for what the combat includes enemy wise, should be made with the player actions in mind.

Simply ignoring a lit fire because the dice chose the fire-adverse enemy from a table is stepping on player agency. It is dismissing the action of lighting that fire because "well the dice." But the actual violation of player agency happened prior to the decision to roll the dice. This means that the DM chose to violate player agency by not adjusting the table to forgo fire adverse creatures.

I hope this makes sense. In my opinion, DMs have a responsibility to set the dice up to respect player agency. Not doing that is the DM choosing to step on that same agency. The decision to roll dice doesnt remove the underlying issue or make the DM impervious to blame. In these cases, the DM is simply using the dice as a scape goat.
By this logic, GMs should never use dice because any dice roll, even ones required by the rules, can nullify the players' ability to make meaningful decisions with their characters. The only way to effectively play would be to ditch the dice and just let the players' characters do whatever the players want, right?
 

Right, my example was a white room to just draw a contrast between options available to a barbarian to proactively declare & a wizard to proactively declare when it comes to obstacle bypassing.

Let's set some stakes: there's two owl bears chasing them (dire owl bears? whatever) - the barbarian just stole some eggs for an alchemist back in town. The wizard sees the bars and bamfs through. What options do you allow the barbarian to take, and what in the system says to do so? (Some scattered potential options off the top of my head:

a) something like "my prep says this a rusted portcullis sealed shut with age. It's a DC18 strength check to slam it up, or with a DC15 passive perception (or active check) the party can spot a lever in the corner. It's a DC15 strength check to snap it up"
b) "uhhh, yeah cool - you want to what, try and lever it up? what's your strength again? 20? heck ya, that thing can't stop you. You heft it up and off you go, the owlbears in pursuit."
c) "um, yeah, ok, roll athletics (mentally uses the default DC15 for standard checks)"
d) "Right, you skid to a halt in front of the gate - you can hear the owl bears bellowing as their claws skid off the stone floor. ....oh, yeah, ok so you see the gate and what might be some old machinery in the corner? ok yeah, looking close at the machinery you can see its like old levers and stuff - probably to seal the gate from this side. rusty as heck. Yeah, you can totally see if that lever will open, um - strength check please? but they're going to be on you in a second if you fail."
e) "Right, yeah, roll +STR but I'll tell you right now an obvious consequence if you don't pick "it doesn't take long" they're gonna be on you."

Rough attempt to do:
  • Classic AP deisgn
  • Permissive DMing based on passive
  • Ad-hoc dice rolling
  • something approximating OSR where the ref felt an ability check was required
  • DW: the player narrates that they're Bending Bars, Lifting Gates and the move triggers based off the fiction.

I find all those solutions acceptable, depending on the judgment of the DM and the style of the table.

What bothers some people is probably that the Wizard just gets to Bamf through without relying on GM adjudication, because that fits a pattern about casters vs. martials that some people find objectionable.

Doesn't bother me at all. I don't feel that way about casters vs. martials. (And I pretty much always play martials; I hate relying on spell slots, and would have hated having "martial spell slots" in 4e.)

Assuming the barbarian can't get the gates open, I see a few things happening:
  • The barbarian can hand the eggs through the bars. So even if he goes down in a blaze of glory, at least they (the party) gets the eggs.
  • The barbarian can rage and duke it out with the owlbear while the wizard casts through the bars. The owlbear can't change targets because the bars in the way.
 

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