D&D General What is player agency to you?

[pemerton]

I don’t understand why you keep bringing 4e into this. Do you think I’m talking about 4e d&d when I say use the d&d shorthand? Heck no you don’t. So why respond to me as if that’s what I’m talking about?

When you refer to D&D I assume you are talking about D&D in general. This is a General D&D thread.

 

[FrogReaver]

When you refer to D&D I assume you are talking about D&D in general. This is a General D&D thread.

then make better assumptions.

Edit.
By the way, Looks like you don’t actually assume that.

I have made this point many times in this thread. But somehow "D&D" keeps getting used as if all D&D is how @Oofta or how @FrogReaver plays D&D.

 

[Guest 7042500]

Player agency to me means innumerable long rambling discussions with no clearly agreed upon definitions.

 

[Micah Sweet]

First, your contrast is false. There is no aspect of the fiction that players in (say) Apocalypse World as per the book have control over, that players in my 4e D&D game played as per the books don't have control over.

I have made this point many times in this thread. But somehow "D&D" keeps getting used as if all D&D is how @Oofta or how @FrogReaver plays D&D.

Second, here is a typical example of how I have seen "player narrative control" being used in this thread:
That is not a description of Apocalypse World, which involves no "metacurrencies", nothing like inspiration or luck pionts, and which - as the rulebook says - divides up the conversation in a very traditional way.

It is not mysterious how AW produces high player agency although it has a very traditional way of dividing up the conversation. It's because the GM is under certain obligations in respect of how they do their bit of the conversation. But in every discussion ever of Apocalypse World and similar games, that feature of the game seems to be ignored and instead we get nonsense about purely imaginary differences on the player side of the game.

I certainly don't ignore the GM constraints in PBtA games. I really, really don't like them though, and that way of generating agency doesn't appeal to me.

 

[Guest 7042500]

Actually, I tell a lie. I first encountered the term "player agency" in online discussions whenever somebody was bitching about the referee saying "no" and using the Holy banner of "player agency" to declare the eternal perfidity of the referee.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don’t understand why you keep bringing 4e into this. Do you think I’m talking about 4e d&d when I say use the d&d shorthand? Heck no you don’t. So why respond to me as if that’s what I’m talking about?

Because that's @pemerton 's D&D experience. A version of 4e heavily leaning on player-authored quests is how they played D&D, so it's the closest common ground in that area. From what I've read, they have always played in more or less the same way, making adjustments as needed for systems that don't assume their playstyle.

 

[Micah Sweet]

When you refer to D&D I assume you are talking about D&D in general. This is a General D&D thread.

Your way of playing 4e is not really representative of D&D in general, to be fair. In fact, I'm not sure D&D can be fairly talked about in general regarding this topic.

 

[FrogReaver]

Because that's @pemerton 's D&D experience. A version of 4e heavily leaning on player-authored quests is how they played D&D, so it's the closest common ground in that area. From what I've read, they have always played in more or less the same way, making adjustments as needed for systems that don't assume their playstyle.

I’m not going to debate this as it’s too close to being personal. I will cite one counter example though. The comments about how vanilla narrativism was hard to accomplish in non 4e versions of d&d.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I’m not going to debate this as it’s too close to being personal. I will cite one counter example though. The comments about how vanilla narrativism was hard to accomplish in non 4e versions of d&d.

Oh, there's no value judgment here. But @pemerton has been pretty clear about their gaming history, and it intersects with D&D in a very specific place.

 

[FrogReaver]

For what it’s worth I do believe 4e is d&d. But it’s pretty atypical - which I don’t think should be a controversial statement.