D&D General What is player agency to you?

[niklinna]

I just step in the Thread,
it seem that the Player agency is a secret organisation that run the game over the DM head.

Depending on whose posts here you believe (or even read, it would seem from some of the conversation).

(And by the way, the first rule of Player Agency Club is You do not talk about Player Agency Club!)

But, I am done with this thread!

 

[niklinna]

This is what was given as a game example:

1.Player wants something at random.
2.Player makes 'circle check' (or whatever game rule)
3.GM does whatever the player wants

This looks like a comically reductionistic, even willfully dishonest, take on a process that has been described in some detail and had several concrete examples given. It's like if I told my DM I attacked the dragon, and did my to-hit roll, and the DM said, "Welp the dragon keels over" regardless of the number on the die. But perhaps that's how you run combats—except, you know, the players always die instead.

Like in many other games, a circles check is only one step of a larger process that, in terms of the nuts-and-bolts mechanics, is actually pretty similar to (non-comically reductionistic) round-by-round combat, with explicit lists of the numbers needed to achieve particular kinds of results and of the things you can do to modify those numbers—the details of which are still expected to make some sense within the story as it's unfolded so far. You can barely say that about hit points, much less several other "procedures" of combat in some games.

But that's just my hot take on one incredibly off-the-mark part of your post. I'm done with this thread!

 

[pointofyou]

It's like if I told my DM I attacked the dragon, and did my to-hit roll, and the DM said, "Welp the dragon keels over" regardless of the number on the die. But perhaps that's how you run combats—except, you know, the players always die instead.

It seems reasonable to presume it's the characters who are dying. One has to hope so at least.

 

[niklinna]

It seems reasonable to presume it's the characters who are dying. One has to hope so at least.

Indeed. It would be the quickest (in-game) way out of such a game. Not that I'd have been chained to the table. One has to hope so at least.

 

[bloodtide]

This was heading into the neighbourhood of Auxol, and so Thurgon kept his eye out for friends and family.

Ok, peace by peace, using your exact quotes: the player wishes to 'just' find a family member right where the character is. This is the 'request'.

The Circles check (base 3 dice +1 for an Affiliation with the nobility and another +1 for an Affiliation with his family) succeeded again,

Player makes a check and succeeds.

and the two characters came upon Thurgon's older brother Rufus driving a horse and cart. (Thurgon has a Rationship with his mother Xanthippe but no other family members; hence the Circles check to meet his brother.)

GM does what the player requested. In this case alters reality to say "yup your brother is right there" when the player asked for a family member to be there.

In your D&D games, are there ever combats? Which have the familiar structure

1. Player wishes monster dead​

2. Player makes check​

3. DM says "oh, the monster's dead"​

Well....that is not how combat in D&D works as it's not that simple. It's quite rare for any combat in D&D to end with one roll in one round...but it could happen. But there is a whole chapter on combat and all sorts of combat rules. It's not just One Roll to Win.

In high player agency RPGing, the mechanics give the players the capacity to shape bits of the fiction other than simply whether or not monsters are dead. This is one reason why, in post 211, I said that

But your example of 'shaping the fiction' is just telling the GM to do what you want.

And I say...well if the player can 'shape the fiction' then why can't they just 'shape' it and say 'wish for a pile of gold'. Then, you say, oh the players can only shape teeny tiny little bits of the fiction once in a while. And still has to make a check to do anything. So...this goes right back to sounding like no agency.

I mean during play. Not jokes and songs or detailed backstories.

Have any of your players contributed meaningfully during play?

Guess this depends what your asking?

Like I just ran (three) dragon slaying adventures....and when the players characters killed the dragon I count that as "a contribution''.

If your asking do I ever have a player say "I wish my character could find a treasure chest under the nearby oak tree with a billion gold coins" Then I say "oh, under the nearby oak tree you find a treasure chest with a billion gold coins!" Then, no, that never happens in my game.

No one’s advocating for this. You’re clearly missing something, and I expect you realize that. So why not ask questions or try to get clarification instead of trying to caricaturize a style of play that’s not familiar to you?

The example given, at it's basic was:

1.Player makes a 'request'
2.Player makes a successful rules check
3GM does whatever the player requested

So what am I missing?

 

[pointofyou]

1.Player makes a 'request'
2.Player makes a successful rules check
3GM does whatever the player requested

1. "I attack the orc!"
2. "I hit AC21 and my longsword does 9 damage."
3. The DM subtracts 9 from the orc's hit points.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Guess this depends what your asking?

Like I just ran (three) dragon slaying adventures....and when the players characters killed the dragon I count that as "a contribution''.

I mean have players ever introduced an idea to your game on their own. Has anyone ever said something like “Maybe it was that necromancer we ran into a few sessions ago” and then you were like “wow, why didn’t I think of that?” and decided to make that so?

Like I don’t mean them responding to something you’ve introduced, like slaying a dragon that you placed in the game world. I mean them introducing something entirely new. An NPC family member or patron, maybe a villain of some sort. A family heirloom that played a prominent role in a character’s story.

If your asking do I ever have a player say "I wish my character could find a treasure chest under the nearby oak tree with a billion gold coins" Then I say "oh, under the nearby oak tree you find a treasure chest with a billion gold coins!" Then, no, that never happens in my game.

That never happens in anyone’s game, stop being silly.

The example given, at it's basic was:

1.Player makes a 'request'
2.Player makes a successful rules check
3GM does whatever the player requested

So what am I missing?

Well, @pointofyou already shows you how flawed your logic is as it applies to the basic playloop from attacks to skill checks and so on.

But I’d say when a game has something like Circles… which stands for Social Circles… then you can make a check using that stat at appropriate times. If you succeed at the roll, then you gain some kind of benefit… someone you know is available to help or provide some information. Who it is and what they do may depend on what makes sense in the game world and what’s been established.

What I think you’re missing here is that if you fail the roll, it’s not just “oh no one’s available to help”, but that there’s a consequence of some sort. Maybe you do find your old friend… but they’re in jail. Or as you ask around town for your friend, you attract unwanted attention. There’s no simple “oh well, I failed, let’s move on”… each such roll is consequential.

Circles and similar game mechanics are used in games that want the characters to seem like people who actually exist in the world of the game. That they know people and have resources they may be able to draw upon. And they don’t want to just leave this all up to the GM.

It’s a pretty fine example of player agency supported by mechanics.

 

[niklinna]

1. "I attack the orc!"
2. "I hit AC21 and my longsword does 9 damage."
3. The DM subtracts 9 from the orc's hit points.

More specifically for step 1, "What I want is to hit the orc and deal some damage (since I understand that by the rules of this particular game, there is no instant-killing with one blow, but that all weapon strikes—and indeed, in 5e, many formerly insta-kill spells—deal a certain amount of hit points of damage)."

The same goes for step 1 doing a circles check for one's brother to be around. You don't get to specify that your brother also has 25 potions, the key to the city, and an eligible young bachelor(ette) with a huge dowry to wed. What you get to ask for is...that your brother be around. What your brother wants is (perhaps lightly constrained by initial character backstory) basically up to the GM. He might have a healing potion, or know where they can be had, but he might also want a favor in return.

Anyhow, you know, done.

Edit: Minor clarifications.

 

[niklinna]

Oh to toss in an example using quite different mechanics: In Blades in the Dark, you absolutely can say, "I want to straight-up kill that guy" and make a single roll to do it. If that makes sense in the fictional situation—say the guy is a mook or not a fighty type or even just not that important in the scheme of things, and you have a wicked poisoned sword—the GM can set the position and effect accordingly (say Controlled/Great) and a good enough Skirmish roll will net you a dead target. But you, the player, do not get to dictate the outcome, and even if you kill the guy, there might be a complication in the form of a scream somebody hears, or a new threat appearing, or whatever.

If that guy happens to be an elite assassin, or there's a squad of police around, well then, your GM is likely to set your position and effect at Desperate/Limited, with a clock to burn through before you have a hope of even injuring your target. Not only are you not going to take this foe out in one blow, they just strike at you before you can swing, and they're gonna hit, unless you actively do something to avoid that, or take stress or more likely an injury.

This in a game widely regarded as having lots of player agency.

 

[Campbell]

A player does not just make a Circles check to get X to happen. They must declare a credible action that could possibly result in say finding their brother in the city based on established fiction about their brother and the city. Part of the reason why someone would want to run a game with a mechanic like Circles checks is because they don't want to engage in the sort of fine-grained world building or extrapolation from world building to determine where NPC X is at Y time and/or play through scenes of a player character going from place to place searching for a particular NPC. They just can't be arsed to.

When I am running more traditional games, I tend to play most of this stuff fairly fast and loose myself. I look for X person in their usual hangouts or sometimes even I go looking for X is generally enough to get things moving. More often than not unless someone is trying to not be found the scene just happens. Sometimes they might have other stuff going on in which case I make it clear so players can investigate because for the most part these sorts of physical logistics are a lot less interesting to me than NPC relationships, what they are up to, etc.

I think it's most useful to assume a GM wants to be running the game they are running. This might not always be the case for more mainstream games like 5e, but it is assuredly the case for games like Burning Wheel. Part of the reason why one might prefer to run a game like Burning Wheel is because they are emphatically interested in exploration of player character beliefs and are emphatically not interested in logistics and extrapolation from detailed world building.

There's a particular context for these rules. That context includes a game where the GM is intended to be more focused on thematic concerns than on detailed world building. When you are running Burning Wheel you are like framing scene after scene of adversity. It requires a lot of creative energy and mental bandwidth to be doing that sort of on-the-fly scenario design. You don't have the bandwidth to also be dealing with those sorts of discrete logistics.