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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DinoInDisguise" data-source="post: 9548126" data-attributes="member: 7045806">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.</blockquote>

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