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What is player agency to you?
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<blockquote data-quote="Bacon Bits" data-source="post: 9071555" data-attributes="member: 6777737"><p>If I wanted to "maximize player agency" in my games, then I'd run them more in the <a href="https://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/" target="_blank">West Marches style</a>. You don't have to exactly replicate it, but it's kind of the quintessential ideal of maximum player agency. The drawback, of course, is that the players need to direct you more, and it sounds like that doesn't happen.</p><p></p><p>But I don't think that's what's really going on here.</p><p></p><p>To me, it feels like:</p><p></p><ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Your players aren't happy with the style of the game. From your description, it sounds like they're not interested in setting lore, while it's a major draw for you. That's pretty common, so I would call it unavoidable. However, it's possible that they're also just interested in collaborating more on the campaign.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Your players don't know what they want, or lack the language to describe what they want, or feel like asking for what they want is going to upset you.</li> </ol><p>I would recommend sitting down with some of <a href="https://www.level1geek.com/dnd-session-0/" target="_blank">the Session 0 tools like these</a> just to try to work through what your players are looking for in a game. A lot of those tools are focused on safety tools, and I don't think that's what you're looking for, but there are My sense is that they're looking for something that's very beer & pretzels, combat-focused, kick-in-the-door, kill the monsters, and take their stuff style of game. Diablo but with dice.</p><p></p><p>Ideally, you can then take that and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtH1SP1grxo" target="_blank">build a campaign pitch document for 2-4 different possible campaigns you could run</a>, and then let the PCs pick one they want. Then you can quickly build a minimal world with the <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/campaign-sheet-27879931" target="_blank">My Campaign one-page campaign</a> doc. There's other similar stuff out there; I just like how straightforward MCDM's stuff is. I understand you're used to doing a lot more than this. The idea here is to force you to minimize the amount of work you have to do before the players need it. Then, when the players have a question, let them help build the world. If someone wants to worship a god of battle, let them invent it.</p><p></p><p>Finally, I would have two criticisms:</p><p></p><p>Communication is difficult, especially in a collectively imagined story, and your players seem to have a complaint about it. There's all kinds of possible less-than-ideal DMing styles, and it's difficult to say if that's what is going on because we're not at your table and your players aren't here. However, if you're going to proudly say that you're not a fan of the players and they say they feel like they can't make correct decisions, my assumption becomes that you've gone too far into DM vs player playstyle. There's a difference between <em>hard</em> or <em>challenging</em>, and <em>punishing</em> or <em>mean</em>. Either way, I do think that them saying that should be an alarm bell for you, even if your players can't articulate any examples. If your players are saying "we 'don't know stuff', and can't make informed decisions," then I think they're very clearly saying you're making it too difficult to learn about or roleplay in the game world through you, or that the game world is simply too punishing. I understand you have your own style, but my feeling is that you're frustrating players because they've been punished for misunderstanding what <em>you</em> were explaining. They don't trust you because you keep trapping them, and "gotcha" isn't fun.</p><p></p><p>Second, speaking in-character is something that a lot of players either aren't comfortable with or aren't interested in. It takes a lot of experience for many people to do it at all, and you shouldn't judge their ability to roleplay based on their ability to voice act.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Bacon Bits, post: 9071555, member: 6777737"] If I wanted to "maximize player agency" in my games, then I'd run them more in the [URL='https://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/']West Marches style[/URL]. You don't have to exactly replicate it, but it's kind of the quintessential ideal of maximum player agency. The drawback, of course, is that the players need to direct you more, and it sounds like that doesn't happen. But I don't think that's what's really going on here. To me, it feels like: [LIST=1] [*]Your players aren't happy with the style of the game. From your description, it sounds like they're not interested in setting lore, while it's a major draw for you. That's pretty common, so I would call it unavoidable. However, it's possible that they're also just interested in collaborating more on the campaign. [*]Your players don't know what they want, or lack the language to describe what they want, or feel like asking for what they want is going to upset you. [/LIST] I would recommend sitting down with some of [URL='https://www.level1geek.com/dnd-session-0/']the Session 0 tools like these[/URL] just to try to work through what your players are looking for in a game. A lot of those tools are focused on safety tools, and I don't think that's what you're looking for, but there are My sense is that they're looking for something that's very beer & pretzels, combat-focused, kick-in-the-door, kill the monsters, and take their stuff style of game. Diablo but with dice. Ideally, you can then take that and [URL='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtH1SP1grxo']build a campaign pitch document for 2-4 different possible campaigns you could run[/URL], and then let the PCs pick one they want. Then you can quickly build a minimal world with the [URL='https://www.patreon.com/posts/campaign-sheet-27879931']My Campaign one-page campaign[/URL] doc. There's other similar stuff out there; I just like how straightforward MCDM's stuff is. I understand you're used to doing a lot more than this. The idea here is to force you to minimize the amount of work you have to do before the players need it. Then, when the players have a question, let them help build the world. If someone wants to worship a god of battle, let them invent it. Finally, I would have two criticisms: Communication is difficult, especially in a collectively imagined story, and your players seem to have a complaint about it. There's all kinds of possible less-than-ideal DMing styles, and it's difficult to say if that's what is going on because we're not at your table and your players aren't here. However, if you're going to proudly say that you're not a fan of the players and they say they feel like they can't make correct decisions, my assumption becomes that you've gone too far into DM vs player playstyle. There's a difference between [I]hard[/I] or [I]challenging[/I], and [I]punishing[/I] or [I]mean[/I]. Either way, I do think that them saying that should be an alarm bell for you, even if your players can't articulate any examples. If your players are saying "we 'don't know stuff', and can't make informed decisions," then I think they're very clearly saying you're making it too difficult to learn about or roleplay in the game world through you, or that the game world is simply too punishing. I understand you have your own style, but my feeling is that you're frustrating players because they've been punished for misunderstanding what [I]you[/I] were explaining. They don't trust you because you keep trapping them, and "gotcha" isn't fun. Second, speaking in-character is something that a lot of players either aren't comfortable with or aren't interested in. It takes a lot of experience for many people to do it at all, and you shouldn't judge their ability to roleplay based on their ability to voice act. [/QUOTE]
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