D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Umbran]

Player Agency is a weird term, but it really boils down to the player being able to make meaningful decisions that impact the game and/or world. These can be in big or small ways, but players like to know their decisions actually matter.

A whole lot of people take that or a similar position. I have come to feel it is incomplete.

Specifically, this focuses player agency only within instances of play, and only on the players direction of their character. But, really, player agency is larger than that - player agency is also exercised when choosing what playstyle to engage in, what game to play, and so on. Player agency starts before play, back in Session Zero.

So, when a player chooses what GM and player group to work with, or not work with, they are exercising their agency. If players choose to take on what they know is going to be a fairly linear adventure, in which they aren't going to have many choices that will impact the result, they are still exercising their agency! How they build characters and backstory is an exercise in agency.

When players discuss among themselves what they do and don't want in a game, and negotiating what the campaign will be like - yep, exercise of agency.

Choosing to allow someone else to take a spotlight moment is an exercise of agency.

And so on. There's lot of places where players make choices that shape the game that aren't about what actioin is taken in the fictional world.

Edit to add: Even in the most railroady adventures, there's agency to be found in HOW characters address challenges. So, maybe the adventure sets up an encounter with kobolds in which a diplomatic solution is really the only option. But some parties will draw up treaties, and others will wind up with their dragonborn paladin as the new Patron Saint of kobolds.

 

[Hussar]

I have to admit the “loaded with lore” raises all sorts of red flags for me. This is a short term campaign. Couple of months long? Say twenty sessions?

If that campaign has more than two pages of lore, it’s too much.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Like others have said, it's a measure of control the plyers have over the game. This can be expressed in terms of their character, they contributions to the world (I've heard people talk about games where the players can't even say who their characters' family is) and in the meta where players feel they have input on the plot, the mood, what rules are being used, etc.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If that campaign has more than two pages of lore, it’s too much.

Only if them pages is 5'3''.

 

[FrogReaver]

Summertime! So most players and nearly all DMs run off for the summer at the Rec and pause or end games. Leaving some players, and no other DMs around for the summer. But players what to play. And I'm there to DM. It's not a good match, as the players are people that dislike or hate me...both inside and outside the game. And I don't care so much for them. But still they form themselves into groups and have me DM a Summertime Campaign. Four groups, three 5E and one 3.5E.

We had "session zeros", and many players said they wanted "player agency" in the games. Of course, no one could tell me what that was other then the "internet buzz words". So I got a lot of "player agency is when the player feels fully responsible for their own actions (whether they were guided or not). As long as the player feels like their hand wasn't forced, they feel like their actions in a game are their own." Or "Player agency is whenever the player performs any input to make any (informed) gameplay decision." Or "Player agency is the ability of a player to affect the course of the game."

So to me, that is all Word Salad. And without anyone having a definition with any bias in reality...we just start the games. In my Classic Old School Hard Fun Killer DM Railroad Tycoon Unfair Unbalanced Style.

So, now, six game sessions in...a couple players in each game are complaing about the "Lack of Agency" in my games. They don't "feel" like they have any "player agency", but they are not sure "why". The rest of the players are fine, or don't care.

For clarity, Two Big Things I notice:

1. I'm not a fan of the players or characters. And the big part of this for me is I don't give out advice or help to the players ever. As the DM I answer factual questions, but not "Hey, is it a good idea for my 1st level halfling bard to dive into the Pool of Deadly Lava and look for treasure?'' I know a great many fan DMs would say "No, wiat, don't do that your character will die", I am NOT one of them. So..in the wacky way: because I don't tell the players what to do...they feel they lack Agency.

2.My game is loaded with lore and information. It's one of my favorite things. Even the player that just coasts through the game will have to go through a little. But then they would have to remember things and use things in gameplay. And plenty of casual players refuse to do this. They are "forced" to listen to flavor text, but they never speak to NPCs in character or interact much with the game world. Their character walks into an inn common room and sees an open book in the fire place that is not being consumed by the flames...and they just ignore it and say "when are we going to fight something?" This comes up a lot for the "informed agency" thing. Players say they "don't know stuff", so they can't make informed decisions. My counter is the players are unwilling to role play, interact or immerse themselves in the game to learn anything. And the classic "they don't write anything down"

So again, I turn to the 'Net. What is player agency to you? What "should" a DM do? What "should" a player do?

IMO. Players don't care about actual agency, they care about whether they feel like they have agency and different players have different thresholds for this and even different areas they may notice it more than others.

1. Players need some level of knowledge about the world in order to make decisions and without that will feel a lack of agency. It sounds like your expectation is that they learn about the world through trial and error and then after sometime they will learn the nuances around how you typically run your games and rule in them. If players are all on board to learn about the world that way then great! But such a style is going to directly cause some to feel a lack of agency. As someone said earlier, there is a belief among many players that the character should understand the world more or less and that such knowledge should be imparted to the player by the DM. For such players if they aren't seeing you providing the characters understanding of the world then that's going to cross over their threshold.

2. 99% of what is obvious to the DM is not obvious to the players. The players don't actually know what you've put in your world for flavor and what for importance. They can investigate some things, but if they keep on hitting the flavor pieces that go no where then you've just conditioned your players to ignore all the other potentially interesting and important bits. Your ratio of interesting lore to immediately important info may very well be the problem. If the whole group is wondering when combat is going to happen then that's a sign of boredom (if it's just 1-2 players then they may just be combat muffins), but if most all then not enough interesting is happening. Whether that's their fault for not playing the way you want them to or you for not DMing more to their playstyle, you are likely the only one that can fix it. Either engage them before the next game and suggest they will have more fun and more interesting stuff happen if they engage those details and make sure interesting stuff happens when they do, or just change your style so that most of the intersting stuff happening is of immediate importance and leads to conflict/problems, where combat may be necessary or at least one possible solutoin. But either way, you are the starting step toward solving this problem.

 

[Hussar]

Only if them pages is 5'3''.

Heh.

The thing is, it really depends on how the lore is being presented. Is it being presented in context during the session - "You enter the town and see this kinda unique feature of the town" or is it, "Here is this fifteen pages of setting material, 99% of which is not relevant to you right now. I want you to go home, read and memorize this on your own time".

 

[FrogReaver]

Heh.

The thing is, it really depends on how the lore is being presented. Is it being presented in context during the session - "You enter the town and see this kinda unique feature of the town" or is it, "Here is this fifteen pages of setting material, 99% of which is not relevant to you right now. I want you to go home, read and memorize this on your own time".

Yea. My guess is that the lore is probably keyed to some map location or event and the exposition happens then. Interaction with the phenomenon probably yields additional lore, probably none of which is immediately important (thus the gripe about not taking notes).

 

[Vaalingrade]

Heh.

The thing is, it really depends on how the lore is being presented. Is it being presented in context during the session - "You enter the town and see this kinda unique feature of the town" or is it, "Here is this fifteen pages of setting material, 99% of which is not relevant to you right now. I want you to go home, read and memorize this on your own time".

It's a rule I have for my books: I need the five hundred page bible fill out the background, establish world motivation, and have something to talk about while having business with the characters. Having that there informs what I'm going to actually present.

The audience does not need to see anything not immediately relevant or adding texture.

It's one of those terrible mistakes writers and critics constantly make: 'Exposition bad!' they scream, ignoring the fact that in spec-fic, you need to explain things and there are good ways to do it and bad ways to tell it on top of prioritizing what needs to be explained.

 

[Deset Gled]

It's not a good match, as the players are people that dislike or hate me...both inside and outside the game. And I don't care so much for them.

Holy moly.

Have you considered just playing a board game or something?

 

[pemerton]

The players don't actually know what you've put in your world for flavor and what for importance.

If this description of things is relevant to a RPG game or campaign, then it is a low player agency one! The GM is the one deciding what matters.