D&D General What is player agency to you?

[FrozenNorth]

How about some people just don't like the idea of this ability working as advertised regardless of circumstance and want some latitude?

The way 5e is set up, any group can modify any rules they want. I would argue that the relative simplicity and transparent nature of the rules makes this relatively easy.

 

[Raiztt]

Though this is my exact problem: Players will complain if the ONLY way to save the princess captured by pirates on an island, is to go to the island and rescue her.

If they can find a way to save the princess without going to the island, more power to them.

But it actually just sounds like you DM for children. Dunno man.

 

[mamba]

If they can find a way to save the princess without going to the island, more power to them.

But it actually just sounds like you DM for children. Dunno man.

That is a big IF and hiring a second party to do the actual work does not get cheers from me

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I just have to say this seems like a really odd take for you EzekielRaiden. Your takes are normally so grounded in logic. Can we start with paragraph 2:

I appreciate the compliment, even if I have failed to live up to that standard this time.

I assume any experienced DM would give reasons why a place exists. They would also foreshadow it. And many would have a historical component to its uniqueness.

But that isn't what was described above. What was described, upthread, was someone pointing to a passage in their 20 (or was it 25?) year old compendium of setting notes. This isn't the first time such things have come up either. Multiple actual people--specific posters on this forum--reserve the right to simply declare that sort of thing if they feel it makes sense. Or, worse, to not declare it, but have it exist nonetheless.

I would not invent this sort of thing if people had not expressly said it's what they do, have done, or reserve the right to do.

Paragraph 1:

Does that pyromancer complain when they have a combat encounter where the creature has fire immunity? It is part of the game sometimes (not always). A tit-for-tat. A, "Hey, I let you blast things with your fireball three games in a row. It was fun, huh? Now you encounter someone with counterspell."

A single encounter is quite a bit different from an entire adventure designed such that it screws over a specific party member. And if you want an actual, IRL example of this kind of stuff, not one I invented off the top of my head: People complaining about undead-centric adventures or campaigns when playing as Rogue, because Rogue (at least in 3e) could not do sneak attack damage to undead for ill-explained simulationist reasons. (Something to the effect of "undead don't have functional anatomy, so they have no special weak points," as though it couldn't still be the case that they have weaker spots to attack for different reasons...)

Again, I never liked that style being the only style. But sometimes, players need to overcome obstacles. And a place where their strengths are not strengths, that should be looked at as a challenge, not something to complain about.

But such things should either (a) not be blanket "now you just suck for this whole adventure, because the thing you specialized into is worthless for now," OR (b) should be EXTREMELY well-telegraphed so the player has a chance to prepare, or potentially even to look for a solution of some kind. E.g., with the Rogues and undead thing above, maybe they do some digging and find out that holy weapons can still harm undead that way--but the character has a rocky relationship with faith. Suddenly, what was just a crappy blanket "nope, you don't get to be a fun rogue, you get to be a Wal Mart brand Fighter" now becomes a cool opportunity. What is the rogue willing to do to keep their edge (in this case, almost literally edge)? Will they try to mend their ways and find a good-guy deity to petition? Or perhaps they turn to something a bit...darker? After all, "holy" in D&D just means an enchantment from a divine source, not from a good source. Etc.

You seem to be taking it as a given that the GM will only do things in the most maximal extent of good faith. Folks here on ENWorld, to say nothing of the wider internet, have more than once told me otherwise, when it comes to doing the work of justifying why a thing should be the case.

 

[dave2008]

Though this is my exact problem: Players will complain if the ONLY way to save the princess captured by pirates on an island, is to go to the island and rescue her.

You have the strangest players!

 

[soviet]

A GM can always use their imagination to come up with a logical reason why a particular ability doesn't work.

A creative player and/or GM can nearly always come up with a logical reason why it can at least be tried.

Prioritising 'no' over 'yes' is prioritising the GM's preferred outcome over the player's agency. Doing it with any frequency means players have less agency in your game.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Let's say you're in If you're in the City of Brass, there is no reason for the Sultan to give you audience. Why would they? They don't consider you to be of the same social class. There's likely no benefit from establishing relationship for economic or social reasons. As far as they're concerned you belong to an inferior class of beings, mud grubbing mortals. Not only that, but how are you even going to let them know you want an audience? You go up to an efreeti guard and demand an audience because you're the Grand High Poobah of some backwater material realm, not even native to the plane of fire? You'll be lucky if they just laugh.

You act as if the game world has a will of its own. You've decided all these things.... the attitude of the Sultan, the prevalent views of the efreet, the lack of alternatives than the Sultan (the ability says a local lord, not a specific local lord)... and so on.

All the above is up to you. You've decided that these things... these decisions you've already made... matter more than the player's idea. Now, this is perfectly fine. It just is so. You can't say this and then talk about how you allow player agency.

Because circumstances sometimes lead to roadblocks would be my answer. I was a player in a campaign once where the port was completely barricaded by warships. Not even fishing vessels were allowed to leave. I wasn't DM, but if we had asked him to secure passage, I feel like he would have every right to say no for that session. And then, if needed, construct something that represented the danger of these warships and the seriousness of trying to leave.

Wouldn't that have been established before hand? Like, they could see that there were warships blocking access to the port? I think that's a little different. If the DM introduced the barricade simply to block the request because he doesn't want the characters to leave the city yet because there's "more to do"... then that's something else entirely.

But, either way, I would think in these circumstances, there's going to be some dude out there who is gonna try and get past the barricade, right? Some smuggler or pirate or freebooter that rumor has it has been getting ready to get past the barricade... and people are saying he's mad or that he has some foul magic that he'll use to do it... and so on.

It's an invitation to something interesting, no?

I agree with all your points except the bolded. I have seen many players just use their background feature as a utility spell and not actually part of their character. I have seen an outlander resist all attempts the DM gave him to explore his background. He stated he only took it for the skills. Then, when it suddenly came to being lost, he said, I use the terrain feature. Mind you, he never played his character as an outlander. He never even had a hint of it in his character. Even the image of his character didn't give you an outlander vibe. He took it because of the skills. Then wanted to use its feature when it was useful.

Sure, that happens from time to time. I imagine it happens more in games where this stuff has been shown to not matter.

And I'd say it's also on the DM... if you have a character with the noble background in the party and you haven't considered why there's a noble with this group, and what it might mean for their life or obligations, then I'd say that DM is passing up a lot of potential ideas for things to introduce into play.

Great example and one I can actually relate to:
For the record, I was holding my breath and tried to use second wind, and the DM suggested it wouldn't work because my normal training allowed me to focus on my breathing to supply that extra burst. I was fine with it. But I generally go along with what the DM says anyways. Maybe others would have had a problem, but I have a hard time seeing why.

What was gained by the DM denying this ability?

@hawkeyefan For this one specific example I would also add that it says:

"You can secure an audience with a local noble if you need to."

It could be argued that local means exactly what Oofta says it means in the above paragraph.

It could. But this goes back to it being a choice. We can interpret it that way... which shoots down the player's idea... or we can interpret it to mean a lord local to the current location (which seems to make more sense... what noble can't get an audience with their own family or local lords?) which acknowledges the player and places their character into a position of prominence in the unfolding events.

So someone wants to have a meeting with the President of the United States. They claim they "deserve" an audience because they are the Prelate of Alpha Centauri B. Would that work? Let's take another example. The group is lost in the underdark. Everyone they've encountered is hostile and tries to either kill or enslave them. One of the PCs has the criminal background that has the feature that they can get a message to their criminal contact. I'm not going to invent a (relatively) friendly smuggler just so they can pass a message along. Perhaps once they figure out how to survive and somehow establish at least a temporary truce and relationship with the locals it can happen. But when every time they encounter other humanoids it's quickly followed by "Roll for initiative"? No.

I'm not going to twist world building lore that way. If that means I'm not the right DM for you, so be it.

It's not about anyone wanting you to DM another way. You can DM however you want. It's perfectly fine! No one is saying you're wrong for doing it the way you're doing it.

 

[dave2008]

This also illustrates how D&D - at least 4e D&D - can be played in a manner that is high player agency.

Question: Is someone suggesting D&D can't be played with high player agency or just that they don't play it that way?

 

[Oofta]

A GM can always use their imagination to come up with a logical reason why a particular ability doesn't work.

A creative player and/or GM can nearly always come up with a logical reason why it can at least be tried.

Prioritising 'no' over 'yes' is prioritising the GM's preferred outcome over the player's agency. Doing it with any frequency means players have less agency in your game.

So to maximize agency the DM should just let them do whatever they want?

 

[FrogReaver]

A GM can always use their imagination to come up with a logical reason why a particular ability doesn't work.

A creative player and/or GM can nearly always come up with a logical reason why it can at least be tried.

Prioritising 'no' over 'yes' is prioritising the GM's preferred outcome over the player's agency. Doing it with any frequency means players have less agency in your game.

I agree with both premises but not the conclusion.

I think the conclusion is that in a game about exploring the GM or adventure paths world (a fundamental premise of D&D) that the DM being forced to make up a fictional reason to say yes to the player actively violates that fundamental premise.