D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Maxperson]

I prefer the Rub al Khali to the Sahara, myself.

If it doesn't have Sandworms in it, you have no agency.

 

[Oofta]

No one’s ignoring it. You are ignoring anything beyond it.



There’s no such thing as character agency.

I would just say there's agency, period. There is no such thing as separate types of agency in games, there are simply different ways of granting and restricting agency. Some people absolutely make a big deal about "player agency" whether or not you or I do.

I’ve been talking primarily about 5e D&D. I’ve specifically mentioned different 5e games I’ve participated in that had different levels of agency.



If someone feels they don’t have enough of something, what might they typically hope for?



Has anyone advocating for high agency games indicated this is a concern?

There is such a thing as too much choice too much "agency". More agency is not inherently better.

As far as I'm concerned there's only agency in the game, whether you call it "player" agency or not. But some people do make that distinction, creating subcategories, one of which is "player" agency. If anyone considers "player" agency to only be things the player can directly control, then I'm simply stating that there has to be some other category to describe other types of agency, e.g. character agency. If they don't then it goes back to artificially limiting what is considered agency just to "win" an argument.

 

[Maxperson]

@Maxperson, I don't know why you are equating enjoyment and agency.

Because agency is all or nothing, that's why. I can match your dessert bite for bite, so neither one can have greater or lesser agency than the other. The only metric that matters is what aspect of agency you enjoy. You enjoy tiramisu and I enjoy strawberry shortcake.

Edit: Maybe this will help you understand. Agency = Car. If you and I buy cars, we are both buying a complete car(full agency). However, we can still prefer different aspects of the car(agency) that we want the car to focus on. You might prefer acceleration and top speed, where I value suspension. You will shop around for a car with the most acceleration and top speed, since that's what you like and I will shop for one with the best suspension. Even though the values of acceleration, top speed and suspension can be greater or less in various cars, no matter what we select we will both still have full car(agency). Agency isn't dependent on the aspects we value. It is all or nothing. You either have a car(agency) or you don't.

 

[Campbell]

I personally use player agency to emphasize that I am speaking to meat space rather than just the imaginary space. There is a tendency within our hobby to romanticize play and not want to dig into details of how things like setting and scenario design are done, the process by which rulings are made, the social dynamics and expectations at the table, the impact of reward systems (both advance and what options are more effective at the table), etc.

One common way this is done is the disclaiming of accountability for setting design decisions wherein GMs basically act like victims to their own setting and scenario design instead of taking responsibility for impact of decisions they have made in prep. Same goes for players who do not take responsibility for the characters they have designed and brought into play.

I want to look at what is actually happening at the table. Not our feelings about the magic circle our entire hobby depends on.

 

[FrogReaver]

Capacity admits of degrees. Power, and its exertion, admits of degrees. Intervention that produces an outcome admits of degrees - one's role in that production can be modest, significant or total.

Yet capacity to do X means you can either do X or you cannot. There’s no degrees there. And this is how your definition was phrased.

Capacity itself isn’t scalar or binary of itself - the thing being capacitized determines the binary or scalar relationship. So it may be scalar for certain things, but it need not be for all things.

If I were to assert that playing Burning Wheel as per the rulebook gives players more capacity to participate in establishing the shared fiction, then does playing (say) the 3E module Speaker in Dreams as written, that would be contentious.

I don’t think that’s contentious at all. It’s readily accepted by almost all that narrative games provide more player authorship. What you are saying here isnt really much different than that.

The point of contention isn't the terminology. There are two points of contention: (1) that it is possible to produce rich, coherent, vibrant, verisimilitudinous fiction in RPGing through means other than GM authorship and curation;

I’ve mentioned scene framing before. I think scene framing and consequences for failed rolls are GM authorship and curation. So I don’t think fully doing so without those things is accurate.

That said if you modify the claim to ‘much less dm authorship and curation’ then I don’t that would be contentious either. There is a caveat that people new to the idea probably won’t get it right away. It also doesn’t help that the focus on agency to explain the differences is counterproductive to someone grappling with how this kind of game they’ve never played works. IMO of course.

and (2) that (1) can take place without players exercising what has been called in this thread "player narrative control", or conch-passing narration rights.

IMO. All rpg’s can be viewed as conch passing to some degree. Even D&D. It’s not a great criticism though it definitely has occurred toward narrative games much more.

That said I remember many comments about conch passing were geared more toward exploring the limits of agency over the fiction and not as claims that narrative style games were played that way.

I don’t think what’s typically been meant by ‘player narrative control’ is the same concept as conch passing. It’s much more nuanced and meant to be short hand for the the kinds of things players get control over in PbtA or BitD that they don’t get control over in games like D&D.

The basis for my assertion in the previous paragraph is that I see (1) and (2) routinely denied whatever terminology is used to describe them.

It’s strange. I see most people readily agreeing with 1.

I’m not sure about 2 because how I’m using it is supposed to be identical to the things players can do in games like PbtA or BitD that you claim grant them more control over the shared fiction than the kinds of things D&D players can do. In this context I don’t think you really want people to deny 2. In fact I think there’s broad agreement that player narrative control games do grant players control over the shared fiction in many ways without becoming just a game of conch passing.

Isn't that just a reduced or deferential form of the agency I described?

If that was so then the games you claim should have more of the form of agency you described should also be able to have more agency of the form I described and I think you agree this is clearly not the case. Your games don’t really respect DM curated worlds.

 

[FrogReaver]

@clearstream @mamba @Micah Sweet @CreamCloud0 @Snarf Zagyg @Oofta

Are we all in agreement that ‘Narrative Games’ like Powered by the Apocalypse or Blades in the Dark can produce rich, coherent, vibrant, verisimilitudinous fiction in RPGing via less reliance on GM authorship and curation when compared to th GM authorship and curation of D&D?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

@clearstream @mamba @Micah Sweet @CreamCloud0 @Snarf Zagyg @Oofta

Are we all in agreement that ‘Narrative Games’ like Powered by the Apocalypse or Blades in the Dark can produce rich, coherent, vibrant, verisimilitudinous fiction in RPGing via less reliance on GM authorship and curation when compared to th GM authorship and curation of D&D?

I apologize because I haven't been following the conversation, but I'm not sure that I understand the question as framed.

 

[FrogReaver]

I apologize because I haven't been following the conversation, but I'm not sure that I understand the question as framed.

There’s some concern that what we’ve termed narrative games (examples: PbtA, BitD, etc) are being accused of not being able to produce rich, coherent, vibrant, verisimilitudinous fiction without d&d levels of GM authorship/curation of the fiction. I don’t think any of us believe that and so was hoping to put that concern to rest.

 

[Micah Sweet]

@clearstream @mamba @Micah Sweet @CreamCloud0 @Snarf Zagyg @Oofta

Are we all in agreement that ‘Narrative Games’ like Powered by the Apocalypse or Blades in the Dark can produce rich, coherent, vibrant, verisimilitudinous fiction in RPGing via less reliance on GM authorship and curation when compared to th GM authorship and curation of D&D?

Sure, but I don't want to play that way, so its personally irrelevant.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

There’s some concern that what we’ve termed narrative games (examples: PbtA, BitD, etc) are being accused of not being able to produce rich, coherent, vibrant, verisimilitudinous fiction without d&d levels of GM authorship/curation of the fiction. I don’t think any of us believe that and so was hoping to put that concern to rest.

At the danger of not knowing exactly what the conversation has been about ... not that this has ever stopped me before ... I'm not sure that I agree with that statement.

Different games, and different modes of play, are generally better at certain things. When you slather on adjectives like a kid with access to a jar of Nutella (rich, coherent, vibrant), it seems clear that this is supposed to be a statement that these narrative games are "as good" as D&D- a statement I completely agree with.

But they aren't "as good" at D&D at certain things- just as D&D isn't "as good" as those games at other things. If all games were equally as good at the same things, there wouldn't be a need for other games, and people wouldn't have preferences between them!

For example, ne of the advantages of a single point of fictional authority (such as the "DM") is that it can be more cohesive.

To me, this is just an odd statement unless I am misunderstanding it; these games are not D&D, and their strengths and weaknesses are different. They are as capable of producing a rich and vibrant session as D&D, definitely! But I prefer to celebrate their strengths in the sense that they are different, not in the sense that they are the same.