D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Vaalingrade]

If the DM gets to ignore the rules, the players should get to as well.

And if we were pretending players would use narrative control for advantage every opportunity, wait until you've invalidated all concept of fairness and rules by actively ignoring them as an attempted power move.

 

[FrogReaver]

This is inaccurate.

The background indicates that you work with the DM to determine the particulars of your noble house, etc. It doesn’t say anywhere that the feature only works in certain circumstances, or that the feature working is contingent on what you decided with DM.

Quoting the feature:

Feature: Position of Privilege
Thanks to your noble birth, people are inclined to think the best of you. You are welcome in high society, and people assume you have the right to be wherever you are. The common folk make every effort to accommodate you and avoid your displeasure, and other people of high birth treat you as a member of the same social sphere. You can secure an audience with a local noble if you need to.

So there’s a good counter example here. Suppose the king of a rival kingdom awakens to you standing over him with dagger drawn in the middle of the night. Does the king assume you have ever right to be there (note: the feature says people assume you have every right to be wherever you are)? Or should a player feel the dm violated the feature if the king screams for guards?

 

[Mort]

So there’s a good counter example here. Suppose the king of a rival kingdom awakens to you standing over him with dagger drawn in the middle of the night. Does the king assume you have ever right to be there (note: the feature says people assume you have every right to be wherever you are)? Or should a player feel the dm violated the feature if the king screams for guards?

Nothing about a "right to be there..." would stop the king from calling the guards and having the PCs executed for trying to kill him.

A king's guard would also have the right to be there. But if he's caught trying to kill the king (or even if evidence is found/planted and they grab him before the act) the fact that he had the right to be there isn't going to save him.

It's not some magic amulet - it's a plot device for driving the game forward.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's not some magic amulet - it's a plot device for driving the game forward.

That's part of my problem. Ideally, I'd like to avoid game widgets that exist to be "plot devices" to "drive the game forward". That implies there's a plot we need to be worried about and manage.

 

[FrozenNorth]

We're not at the level of Fate or PbtA here, we're just letting a character make the game more interesting and wonderous by using one of their character's abilities. Now I would argue that introducing some of the elements from those games into D&D makes it better, but it also makes it a different game, which is not to everyone's tastes.

I want to emphasize this last paragraph, because I think it gets at a lot of what I’ve been trying to say. There are a lot of ways in 5e to empower the players, and most of them don’t involve turning 5e into a PbtA or FATE clone.

How about every time a player rolls a natural 20 on a skill check in a skill they are trained in, they can specify one detail related to that skill roll?

(Like in the spyglass example, the lookout’s natural 20 allowed him to specify that it was pirates on the horizon, not merchants).

 

[Vaalingrade]

Player Agency is the thing that makes that delightful crunching sound when certain DMs MC Hammer dance their way through their story.

 

[mamba]

The text says that the fighter can surge once per short rest. In what circumstances are you denying the surge?

We had that discussion already, I see no point in repeating it. Simply put, if no other party is involved, then I see no reason to stop you, but in theory I could say you cannot do it while poisoned or exhausted (again, session 0). As soon as there are other actors with agency involved, like the noble, then there can be circumstances that prevent it.

And if you do not like that, not my problem. I am not going to change my perspective just because you do not like it. Either convince me, or don't. That being said, chances are you get an audience most of the time, I am just not onboard with it being a guarantee.

 

[Mort]

That's part of my problem. Ideally, I'd like to avoid game widgets that exist to be "plot devices" to "drive the game forward". That implies there's a plot we need to be worried about and manage.

Would you prefer it's a game mechanic to help facilitate fun gameplay?

All this really is is a shortcut to having to have the Noble Character have to go through all the steps a non noble would - because it's supposedly near instinctive to them.

I certainly get -that's not for everyone. Don't like it, don't use it. Just be up front about that!

 

[Micah Sweet]

Would you prefer it's a game mechanic to help facilitate fun gameplay?

All this really is is a shortcut to having to have the Noble Character have to go through all the steps a non noble would - because it's supposedly near instinctive to them.

I certainly get -that's not for everyone. Don't like it, don't use it. Just be up front about that!

And I certainly would be.

 

[SteveC]

Would you prefer it's a game mechanic to help facilitate fun gameplay?

All this really is is a shortcut to having to have the Noble Character have to go through all the steps a non noble would - because it's supposedly near instinctive to them.

I certainly get -that's not for everyone. Don't like it, don't use it. Just be up front about that!

Exactly so! It's a shortcut to getting somewhere. It also sets up the GM to know what sorts of things to expect the players to do so they can make sure to be prepared for them.

I guess I just sort of wonder how a GM would expect to deal with these sorts of issues otherwise. Is it just say no and move on to something else? Is it make a check? All too often in the past I've played with a "you can't do that" style of GM and it put me off the game. So it does matter to me. I guess I'm just surprised that the options the players pick, be it class (subclass), background, or species don't inform the GM about what they expect to get involved with.

It seems like it will lead to conflicts about what happens out of miscommunications.