D&D General What is player agency to you?

[nevin]

nope

 

[nevin]

this one has just gone on long enough felt like saying it.

 

[FrogReaver]

nope

I was really hoping you were going to offer up an exception!

Then I could have said ‘see, same story different name’.

 

[Maxperson]

no the point was the arguments simply don't matter in the real world at the real tables. people don't care enough to read these threads or argure the infinite definitions of agency they just leave when they don't like it. We are all the equivilant of a bunch of monks arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. pointless to everyone but ourselves within the context of the thread.

Show me that rule, because if it isn't written...

 

[FrogReaver]

this one has just gone on long enough felt like saying it.

Just to be clear. I’m on board with this.

So shall we all agree to give it a month, then reconvene and do this again?

 

[Oofta]

Just to be clear. I’m on board with this.

So shall we all agree to give it a month, then reconvene and do this again?

A whole month?

 

[mamba]

no the point was the arguments simply don't matter in the real world at the real tables. people don't care enough to read these threads or argure the infinite definitions of agency they just leave when they don't like it.

oh sure, they can leave. That maybe means us arguing here is a waste of time, but it invalidates nothing. My objection only was to that part.

This is already dying down again anyway, you can just sit tight and let it run its course

 

[hawkeyefan]

Pretty much all analogies are sloppy. Their point isn't to be perfect, but to help you understand the point. That you're going out of your way to ignore the point and argue the analogy tells me that you understand my point.

Then this one was particularly sloppy. It doesn't do a good job of making the point. You compared the way I play D&D with the wrongness of murder.

You have no basis to claim that D&D play does not cause those concerns as a general statement like that.

I'm saying that the way I play D&D... the way where I let abilities work as described in the book, which is what we're talking about... does not result in anything that would justify your concerns about that style of play.

I agree. All of them are rather stark examples of arrogant one true wayism.

They're really not. I'm simply confirming how my game works. The suppositions that you've made about it aren't valid.

I'm not saying that you must or should play that way. I'm telling you your ideas about my type of play are inaccurate.

Because it's still a valid one. Sure you can do an end around what makes sense and push a square peg into a round hole, but that doesn't invalidate the example.

I mean... you can choose to find a way to make it work. Or you can choose to find a way to make it not work. It's a choice.

It's all made up. A way can be found. Instead of looking at the feature and saying "but that doesn't match what I was expecting" you could instead look at it as a fact. The audience is going to happen... how do we explain that? How do we make that work?

Holy hell you make it hard not to laugh. Nobody was making up a "fear about someone else's playstyle." Hypotheticals are just hypotheticals, not attacks that you imagine are coming at you.

I don't know how else to describe your resistance to letting the ability work. You have said you think it will make things inconsistent and so on.... that's the reason you don't want to do that. That's the fear you have about it.

I'm not classifying your fear as irrational or anything. That's just the word for it. I also called it a concern. We can label it however we want, that doesn't change what it is.

Fixed that for you.

If by fixed, you mean you took a way to make the idea work and then made it not work, then sure... I guess it's fixed.

Kinda proves my point, though.

What killed 3rd edition in my experience was rules and splat books. It was the most prolific version I remember. At the beginning it was like mana from heaven after a drought, as a DM I was buried in new books and new splat books and magazine articles. All the new content I could ever wish for. Then the players that felt because WOTC wrote it meant they were entitled to play it anywhere anytime destroyed it.

Those players are the ones you just uninvite and move on because they'll ruin every edition of every game you invite them too.

Yeah but in this case, all we're talking about is some minor abilities described in the main PHB. No splatbooks or rules expansions are involved. It's just letting the abilities work as described.

That it takes some of the DM's authority and shifts it to the players is the real issue.

 

[Oofta]

Then this one was particularly sloppy. It doesn't do a good job of making the point. You compared the way I play D&D with the wrongness of murder.



I'm saying that the way I play D&D... the way where I let abilities work as described in the book, which is what we're talking about... does not result in anything that would justify your concerns about that style of play.




They're really not. I'm simply confirming how my game works. The suppositions that you've made about it aren't valid.

So you're not talking one true way, but your definition of how the rules work is the one ... accurate ... way to interpret the rules and play the game.

I'm not saying that you must or should play that way. I'm telling you your ideas about my type of play are inaccurate.



I mean... you can choose to find a way to make it work. Or you can choose to find a way to make it not work. It's a choice.

And ... this is what it really comes down to. If I say no, it's not because I "found a way to make it not work". It doesn't work because it makes no sense in the fiction. The fact that you can't at least acknowledge a different approach is why I don't usually bother responding to you. I'm not saying no because I'm an evil cackling DM subverting the will of my poor woe begotten players, it's because I want to make a living breathing world that does not revolve around what they want.

It's fine if you grant audience no matter what the circumstances. You run your game from a different perspective, likely with different goals. I just don't understand the absolute refusal to accept that other people have different ways of running the game and that variability, the options to have different styles, is one of the strengths of D&D.

 

[hawkeyefan]

So you're not talking one true way, but your definition of how the rules work is the one ... accurate ... way to interpret the rules and play the game.

No, not at all. People can play the game however they'd like!

And ... this is what it really comes down to. If I say no, it's not because I "found a way to make it not work". It doesn't work because it makes no sense in the fiction.

But you're responsible for the fiction. You're the one that decides something you had written down ahead of time is more important than something the player decides to try during play.

And that's fine! It's a perfectly valid way to play. I mean that sincerely. But it's a choice to place your concept of the fiction above the ideas of the players.

It's not something beyond your control.

The fact that you can't at least acknowledge a different approach is why I don't usually bother responding to you. I'm not saying no because I'm an evil cackling DM subverting the will of my poor woe begotten players, it's because I want to make a living breathing world that does not revolve around what they want.

Yeah, that's fine. I don't think you're an evil cackling DM. I think you value your prep as a priority over player agency in moments where they may conflict.

It's fine if you grant audience no matter what the circumstances. You run your game from a different perspective, likely with different goals. I just don't understand the absolute refusal to accept that other people have different ways of running the game and that variability, the options to have different styles, is one of the strengths of D&D.

Yeah, all I'm doing is pointing out that my game doesn't have these inconsistencies that folks are worried would arise from allowing the background features to always work. So my point has been that the inconsistency angle is a red herring, and so it really is about something else.

I've proposed that it's about the DM valuing their input on the game's fiction (via prep and worldbuilding) over player ideas (of the sort granted by background features, or by focusing play around the player characters). People seem to disagree with this idea... but their arguments against it seem to support it more than refute it.