D&D General What is player agency to you?

[bloodtide]

Why would you run a game for people that either dislike or hate you?

Most of my normal games are on summer time breaks too. Nearly all my players head off for the summer. So, like I said, It's just me and maybe two other DMs...and like 20 players that are "left" for the summer.

So...they defined what player agency was but you think it's all "word salad"...that's not a great sign. That you think it's all "internet buzzwords" and "word salad" suggests you're not interested in players having agency in your games.

I don't agree with all the "stuff", but that's why I'm asking for more detail.

That all sounds great, except the bolded part.

Not for the summer games...but I've been known to set up model train tracks on a table to pass notes, dice and such around.

Sounds like your players want a spoon-fed video game experience. Clearly not a great fit for you or your style.

They do talk about video games often....I kinda hope it's not this...

At it's most basic, player agency is the players’ ability to make choices for their characters and for those choices to actually matter to the unfolding story of the game. It's really that simple.

Only if that was simple....

2. Run games as an open-world sandbox and simply react to what the PCs do. They will always surprise you and it's only slightly more prep than trying to run a module, plus it's infinitely less stressful because you never have to try to force anything on the players.

I can not stand sitting there and doing nothing, so the "common idea" of a sandbox where the players just do random, dull, boring stuff is not my sort of game.

the weirdest dynamic. I'm not sure whether to take you seriously. If serious...I have many questions.

I can answer if you need some clarification. I think lots of players and DM shortage covers it.

If a player asked me that question, I would emphasize the things that would be very obvious to their character - i.e. the lava is extremely hot and looks pretty deadly. Just to make sure they understand the situation (see 1, above). Then if they want to insist in diving into lava, that's on them (see 2, above). Again, it's kind of hard to take you seriously because in my experience real people don't talk or act that way, but giving you the benefit of the doubt.

If am anything, it's blunt and very clear.

So, define "loaded with lore and information." Because it's your thing, so if it is "loaded with lore and information" by your standards, then it is likely overwhelming to most players who have not been in your campaign for a long time. If they are bombarded with information, it will be very hard for them to discern what is important.

I use the bulk of the D&D and related third party lore and information from the last near 50 years. So, read such a book, and you will have a leg up in my games. The adventures themselves have a ton of lore, but 99% of it is not freely given. The players must take actions to learn it.

And I do do the "loaded with information" vs the other way of "the information void where the only things randomly found are super hard core important. "

I dunno. Your stories are so extreme that it is hard to really understand what is going on. They make me wonder whether you are just trying to entertain yourself.

I do think the DM should be just as entertained as the players.

The objections your players are voicing don't seem like what they're truly objecting to.

Based on what you're saying, I would like to know how hard it is for the players in this game to sit down to play and get to the adventure. Do they know where the adventure is and how to get to it? Lots of sandbox games suffer from what I call "quicksand box play." Where the adventure is isn't obvious and it takes forever to figure it out and get to the action, which wrecks the pace and player engagement. Not sure if that is happening here, but I have my suspicions.

No sandbox here....I'm a Railroad DM.

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".

Yes, this is me. But not for any of the summer games: I know they would not read any of it. So, why bother?

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.

My play style is not the Cinematic Way or Video Game Way. My game is full of lore, but it's more for the players that want it and will use it. It's not the pure "action/combat" stuff like random being told a weakness of a foe. It's more a player can learn about a foe as a character in the world, and maybe use some of that somehow in some clever way.

In a general sense I give the players a lot of lore they can use for "real", not the "oh here is what you need to know for Act 3".

Three of the games, are all the same adventure: a custom kill the dragon adventure. As an old, often used adventure, it has a ton of lore, added over the years. I'm not sure if anyone has figured out it's the same adventure and they can share notes yet....we will see. The 4th game is a custom Spelljammer adventure against the negoi slavers, and it has much less adventure lore.

Holy moly.

Have you considered just playing a board game or something?

We do. Axis and Allies is a popular summer game for all of us. Or just Risk. And Ye old ancient Dungeon! But D&D is by far the most popular...

 

[Clint_L]

I'm gonna throw this out there: if you're having trouble getting new players up to speed with the way you like to play, and these are not meant to be long-term campaigns, why not just use published material, with which you seem to be familiar? Lost Mine of Phandelver works great, for example. So does Sunless Citadel; I used it with just such groups at D&D Camp. Dragon of Icespire Peak is similar to Phandelver. Ghosts of Saltmarsh, with a bit of fleshing out to link the adventures, can work well.

Is your goal to prove a point about the way you think D&D should be played, or to run a successful campaign? You would probably like the players a lot more, and they you, if you met them halfway. Using published material, so you don't have as much invested in the campaign, would probably make that easier. Why not accept that you aren't going to change your players, and stop beating your head against a wall? Let go of what your ideal campaign would be, because that ain't gonna happen here, and just have what fun you can with the players as they are.

And yeah, new players need some coaching and hand-holding at time. That's just life - D&D is a very complicated game, and no one is born knowing how to play it. Cut them some slack. Stop worrying about what they know or don't know about life - you're not their parent so it's neither your business nor your responsibility anyway. Your job, freely chosen, is to DM and that's it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

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

For me, as a player, I feel I have agency when:

1. I get a chance to learn about the world (even if I don't take it),
2. I can attempt a reasonable action based on what I should already know and what I have just learned,
3. I experience consequences which follow from the choice itself and the rules/structures/mechanics, not from invisible intrusions,
4. I get a chance to factor those consequences into future choices.

Or, as I have said in more pithy (but jargon-y) terms before: Agency requires (a) meaningful, informed choices which (b) directly produce the consequences observed, and which then (c) can be factored back into subsequent meaningful, informed choices.

This is why I cannot stand any form of illusionism. Illusionism doesn't just disconnect choice from consequence. If that were it, I'd be annoyed at open GM metagaming, but I could tolerate it. I can't tolerate illusionism because it does so concealed, and is meant to be so forever. When that happens, I am no longer playing a game, which is why I play roleplaying games. I can get roleplay without game easily; I did years of near-freeform forum RP. Lose the game, and I see no reason to constrain myself to the limits of D&D. (Again, both are critical; I'm not neglecting the RP side, it's just not relevant to the thread IMO.)

With illusionism, I cannot learn about the world because there is nothing to learn; the world can and will change, specifically without any possibility of me knowing, and I cannot in any way attempt to get better at play as a result. I cannot know what a "reasonable action" should be, because from one breath to the next, reasonableness can mean completely different things and I will never be allowed to know that that changed. I cannot learn from the consequences (good or bad) of my actions, because in a very real sense there aren't any; I provide input, and then the GM makes choices which have consequences, and then I am given an output. My "choices" are merely set dressing for the GM's choices, which are where actual agency occurs--and the GM will act in whatever ways are necessary to prevent me from discovering this.

There are a lot of things GMs do that are invisible. That something is "behind the scenes" or never meant to be known by players is not, in and of itself, objectionable. (As an example, all of the devils in my Jewel of the Desert game, which evokes an Arabic/Arabian Nights style, are faux-Arabized versions of devils from Dante's Inferno.) Likewise, there are various forms of GM intrusion. Some of them are more acceptable than others; in general, the more the player is cognizant that these things occur and are a vital part of play, the better, though I would prefer diegetic solutions, which are essentially always possible. It is very specifically the problem of being both an intrusion and being not just invisible, but meant to be eternally so.

But! I quite well understand that, due to dice being random and mechanics being unfeeling, unthinking, unbending rules, it is possible for stuff to go wrong. I don't mean that in the sense of "the players' plans didn't work out," but rather in the sense of "one or more players is genuinely going to have a bad time or already having one." Such events should already be rare, because GMs should prepare for them and (for example) frame situations so as to forestall rolled consequences that are not worthy of the players' time. Being "rare" does not mean "nonexistent," however, so you still need something to address those rare times.

Fortunately, there is a solution: diegetic intrusion. Instead of making the intrusion totally invisible and blocking any and all attempts for players to learn that the intrusion occurred...embrace it! Let the players know that someone...or someTHING...has intruded to prevent a Bad Fate from occurring, or to power up a boss they obliterated before it even got its turn, or whatever else. It is, of course, ideal for GMs to already have some prepared answers for what this intrusion could be, but it's always possible to get caught with your pants down. In which case, it's a mystery even to you, and that is okay. The GM does not have to know everything all the time.

By having such diegetic intrusions, what would otherwise be an oopsie-boo-boo moment, covered up to preserve the illusion of GM perfection, will instead become a fresh new question to answer or even quest to undertake. Who or what empowered the Goblin Warlock-Lord when he should have fallen to the Barbarian's axe? Does the party have a benefactor that saved them from certain death, or a manipulator trying to trap them in a deal they can't refuse, or something else entirely? Etc. Unlike an invisible intrusion, which ends a particular play-sequence and replaces it with an invisible nothing, a diegetic intrusion creates new play.

I have yet to see even a single example of a problem solved by illusionism that cannot be solved just as well, with better side-effects, with this method instead. Hence, I oppose any and all forms of illusionism, and I absolutely think GMs should avoid it.

Players are a separate subject I will touch on in a different post. Because being a good player is just as important as being a good GM!

 

[reelo]

I like "Player Agency"(tm) by proxy of character agency within the confines of a consistent setting/world. I don't like player "entitlement" to create whatever crazily outlandish (and lore-disregarding) character they wish to play.

 

[chaochou]

It's my view that agency in a game is a product of inviolable rules which players know and can rely on to achieve known goals.

Each of these elements are placed under considerable stress by a lot of rpg play, which typically:

• does not treat rules as inviolable (for the GM)
• features no reliability in resolution for key elements of gameplay and passes it all to the GM to resolve
• assumes the GM will create ad-hoc resolution processes - with resultant lack of transparency for players
• assumes the GM sets goals in secret

I'd suggest:

• It's clear from many posts on these boards and the text of the games themselves that rules are assumed not to work or to need replacing, patching or wholesale improvising - always by the GM with no acknowledgement that transparency is required for informed decision-making, which is the bedrock of agency.
• That 'I make an ability check and you narrate the outcome you think is appropriate' is not reliable resolution for achieving my goals. It's reliable resolution for achieving yours.
• That the traditional game set-up - of 'hooks' and fetch-quests and NPCs who only co-operate once the PCs have done what they're told - is a way of endlessly concealing the GMs actual pre-authored goals for the character or group - until the 'big reveal' 90% of the way through 'the adventure'.

While all these elements can function together to produce fun, functional play, it is low agency play where player agency is ceded so the GM can pace the 'story' to create tension and unexpected plot reveals.

High agency rpg play, on the other hand, typically features;

• No agreement that the GM / MC / narrator can unilaterally disregard the rules
• Transparent rules and processes that offer guaranteed outcomes (good and bad)
• Transparent goals for characters - often through authorship of them by the players
• Faciliatation of that authorship through group creation of setting and/or situation such that character goals are given meaning and context by player choice, not secret GM backstory

 

[aco175]

I'm currently running the Against the Giants series that have been updated to 5e. There is hardly anything that has been updated content-wise. It is just some skill checks and technical things converted over. The series play very DM vs. player style and has a lot of gotcha items and situations. Some of this is just 1e to 5e and some may be that my groups style of play has changed over the last 40 years. I also think some expectations of play have changed or evolved over this time.

For example, there is a room with a giant jailer with some wererat helpers that appear as humans in rags. Fine, the giant fights and the 'humans' will attack if attacked first or they will flee and warn the drow. No big problems until the room that they live in and use every day has a table they eat off of with a poisoned coffer on top of it. If you open it- gotcha, you should have carefully studied the box and checked it for traps before making a History check to recall that giants liked to use poison in the common areas of their homes. Then, you should have told the DM you are using the latex gloves you bought in town and going to whittle a broken arrow shaft into a hand to carefully open the lid while standing on the side in case a dart or trap goes off. You could also ask the mage to use mage hand from outside the room to describe how he uses the hand to open and go through everything in the room.

Or, should it be expected that you can open a box in someone's living room without the gotcha. If there is a reason for the poison, then maybe, but a Perception check should be in order to notice the layer of dust on the box that sat for weeks/years without anyone touching it as a clue. Maybe servants come and clean daily to polish things and recoat the poison, fine- but then there should be a dead servant someplace with black hands who died from the poison and a cleaning rag sticking out of his pocket. Clues should be available for context.

When the game slows down that much because the dungeon is made to shock the players with a bunch of gotcha tricks it makes less fun (maybe for just my group). If the dungeon makes sense then the pace works and people know what to expect and where to be more careful when things do not make sense.

 

[Oofta]

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?

There's a lot here, most of which doesn't seem to really relate to player agency. But my definition? The player feels like they can influence the world around them, that their choices matter, that in most cases they can make decisions based on information and details that help them make those decisions.

In other words, they want to feel like what they say and do matter. Doesn't mean things will always go their way, but if it doesn't there should be an in-world reason. If they were fed false information, it should make sense why they were given this false information and ideally get a chance at payback. They don't need to make major changes to the world outside of what their PC does, but they do need to feel a decent amount of freedom to act as they see fit. I do put some limits on behavior, for example I wouldn't enjoy running a game for evil PCs so I explain that during our session 0.

So in my games I give people options, it's why I don't do modules. Instead I define interesting locations, factions and actors along with their motivations and goals. I point the group in a direction to start but from there I just put out options and rumors. At the end of a session, they get to decide what they pursue next if they aren't in the middle of something and we go from there. If they heard a rumor of people being drained of blood then I'll have to think about what happens because they didn't go after that vampire, if anything. The world exists outside of the PCs and can be affected by their actions and inactions.

That's not the only way to run a game of course, especially for a more short term game or a game for new players. But even in a more directed game you can still give people choices. I recently started a new campaign for newbies and it's pretty directed - they're all working for an organization and given assignments. But they are still given a list of potential leads with the general direction being "figure out what's going on". Do they decide to make an alliance with the local wererat guild because the wererats make great spies? Do some optional little side quests like help a little girl crying on the street? Because the former may come back to bite them while the latter is not really what it seems but could ultimately be very beneficial.

In any case on to other issues...

"In my Classic Old School Hard Fun Killer DM Railroad Tycoon Unfair Unbalanced Style."
Umm ... okay. So basically you are not going to tailor your style at all to what the players want. "Classic Old School Hard Fun Killer DM" is just not going to work for a lot of people. Even if this is only a short term game some people want to become invested in their PCs.

"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. "
You never help people out, so of course they're going to get frustrated. They don't have a friggin' clue as to what their PC can do or not do, so you just punish them with instant death when they jump into that lava that as a player they have no way of possibly knowing how deadly it's going to be. No wonder they feel like they are just pawns in your game. It's not telling the player what to do, it's giving the information their PC should have in order to make an informed decision. "You can jump in the Pool of Deadly Lava if you want, but as far as you can tell it will be suicidal" is not telling the player what to do.

I help people, especially newbies, on a regular basis because they can't read my mind. They likely don't know how I run skill checks or what their PC is physically capable of. I even help more experienced players if they're stuck, I give them options and suggestions because maybe I wasn't clear or it's something I think should be obvious to the PC, if not the player.

"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."
I think someone else mentioned this. I can either play or I can take notes. In addition, my PC is living in this world and in many cases it's a matter of life and death. Me? As a player? It's something I do for fun now and then. I don't want it to be like studying for a pop quiz. That, and honestly? Most casual players don't really care much about your lore, especially for a short term campaign. I create a lot of lore myself and some people really dig into it, others not so much. I don't punish the latter because they aren't a fan of my amateur hour fantasy fan-fic.

If my players have to make a decision based on lore I've dumped I'll just remind them of the pertinent information.

Since this is not your regular group I'd suggest you try to meet the players halfway. You can have a directed campaign without being a complete railroad, even if you set destinations along the way you can give people options on what paths to take to get there. It's a short term campaign so I'd ease up on the lore and stop asking people to prep for their sessions like they're taking a "Bloodtide Campaign 101" course. You don't have to go down the route of doing whatever the players want but you can also have their choices matter. If you want them to pick up the book that's not burning in the fireplace give them a reason to care about such things other than another wall of boxed text.

 

[jgsugden]

My process and how player agency fits in:

1.) I find a group of players that are compatible with each other.
2.) I ask them what style of games they like. I ask them for PC ideas, but do not expect them to commit.
3.) I pick a setting for them. I have several homebrew, and a few prebuilt, from which to choose.
4.) I assemble the outline for the campaign. This features events that will happen (natural disasters, a solstice, etc...) and things NPCs intend to see happen (start a war, kidnap the prince, kill the Gods, etc...)
5.) I do a session 0 with each player. I ask them to choose a PC and settle upon a backstory. I ask them about goals, family, friends, 2 iconic stories from the character's youth. I then suggest tweaks to better fit into the setting, such as using a specific established NPC to replace a generic bad guy in a story, or suggesting the character origin story take place in a specific city in my setting. Sometimes I point out that a choice they made would be against the customs of the civiilization - and then work out whether to change the situation, or explain it.
6.) I take the information from the session 0s, modify my outline to accomodate, and then insert meat onto the bones of the outline to prepare for the first few adventure sessions.
7.) Once I put the meat on the bones, it is locked into place. I may insert things into the story on the fly, but once I write down that Devroe Everlast was scared of Spiders, Devroe Everlast has that feature. I won't change it to a fear of snakes. I won't decide just to abandon it.
8.) The result is a setting where the players do not know what to expect, but they contributed to the storylines and can feel like the characters are a living part of the world.

Then, as we play, I let characters attempt to do anything that makes sense for their characters, including entirely abandoning the storylines I set up in favor of a whim. That abandoned storyline will continue to play out in their absence, but they can make any choice that makes sense to them for their PC.

In the end, they help contribute to how the campaign is built and direct where the main storyline goes. I just provide the setting and opportunities for them to investigate and experience.

 

[DammitVictor]

Player Agency, to me, is as simple as whatever scenario I put down in front of my players, they feel free to set their own objectives in relation to it-- and then, they feel that their success or failure at meeting those objectives and the consequences of their success or failure are entirely the result of their in-character decisions, the in-character decisions I make for my NPCs, and the indifferent injustice of the dice.

Perfect player agency means that I am not telling the story and I am not even mastering the game, I'm just an umpire interpreting the dice and keeping the maps up-to-date.

 

[LordEntrails]

I think it's obvious that you enjoy D&D in a different way than your temporary players and probably many of us here do. And to me, it seems that this might be due to how you relate to other people.

Don't answer this, it's none of our business, but I am posing this question as something for you to consider. And maybe the considerations and their outcomes might help you with these types of issues and others. Is it possible you might be on the autism spectrum? I'm no expert, but I have had friends who were, and their relationships with others seemed to be presented in a similar way to what I think you are laying out in your OP.

It might help explain why you see things so differently than so many others. And the answer might help you figure out how you might chose to frame your relationships with these players who seem to so confound you.

Happy Gaming.