Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
What is player agency to you?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 9092850" data-attributes="member: 6696971"><p>Its an interesting question. My answer would be "it depends on the dynamics of the system in question."</p><p></p><p>So for instance, take a game where player agency is overwhelmingly (or exclusively) cited at (a) the PC build stage where they are meant to build toward action resolution suites that defeat target numbers and (b) the ability for players to navigate a sequence of obstacles (moment to moment, session to session, adventuring day to adventuring day, etc) and martial the stuff in (a) to defeat target numbers.</p><p></p><p>Ok, we still have a gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang of question to answer about (a) and (b). How well is (a) suited to the task to reliably defeat the obstacles of (b)? Is there a GM veto on (a)? How does "when does any given situation resolve successfully, unsuccessfully, or become complicated (and how)" get sorted out? How do target numbers get decided? Is there a procedure for those things? Is it transparent and table-facing? What about consequences for failure? How do those get foregrounded/telegraphed and what types of consequences? The reason why these consequence-related questions matter is because it informs whether or not the players can adequately manage their decision-tree and settle on a course of action.</p><p></p><p>And even before these questions above we have the all-important question of "how do we settle matters of what the premise of play actually is in the first place? Who decides on what the nature of protagonism is and how that propels the trajectory of play?"</p><p></p><p>So here is an easy confounder to "does a lower than D&D-typical (lets call it 67-75 %) success rate equate to less agency." Mouse Guard is the 2nd game in the BW family of games. I don't have anything quantitative for you, but over the course of any given Season (which is probably somewhere around 3-4 Missions, look at them like D&D adventuring days), the overall success rate for the Mouse Guard is probably somewhere around 55-60 % outside of Conflicts. That is less than 67-75 %. However, here are several system dynamics to Mouse Guard in relation to that success rate:</p><p></p><p>* Most importantly, Mouse Guard is a Fail Forward system. Failure means either "Success with a Condition/cost" or "Twist (situation becomes complicated by a new obstacle or escalated situation)." That is a big deal by itself. </p><p></p><p>* Players are incentivized to Fail in two different ways; (i) they need to strategically accrue failures to advance all of their PC stuff and (ii) they need to risk failure via using Traits against them to earn Checks (which power the Player's Turn; think Downtime in Blades in the Dark since you're familiar with it) or use Traits to break ties to outright Fail a test. These incentive structures and "failure minigame" affords agency.</p><p></p><p>* Players have widgets/handles/currency to spend/risk in order to amplify their dice pools on any given test. This resource martialing minigame is a large part of agency in this game.</p><p></p><p>* Obstacles are Factored so there is a codified, table-facing procedure for setting Obstacles. This informs player decision-trees and approach to any given obstacle. Better informed players to manage their decision-tree equals more agency.</p><p></p><p>* The Mission Loop is codified and straight-forward so players know what their "work-day" looks like (Test/Conflict to journey from safe haven to Mission Obstacle 1 > If Twist then handle, otherwise Mission Obstacle 2 > If Twist then handle, otherwise Test/Conflict to establish a safe haven in the wild or journey back to a settlement > Player's Turn). Transparent, table-facing loop means better informed player decision-trees across the whole loop; more agency.</p><p></p><p></p><p>There are plenty of other things as well, but those are the high points as it pertains to % success. So TLDR; <em>its complicated and system-dependent.</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Manbearcat, post: 9092850, member: 6696971"] Its an interesting question. My answer would be "it depends on the dynamics of the system in question." So for instance, take a game where player agency is overwhelmingly (or exclusively) cited at (a) the PC build stage where they are meant to build toward action resolution suites that defeat target numbers and (b) the ability for players to navigate a sequence of obstacles (moment to moment, session to session, adventuring day to adventuring day, etc) and martial the stuff in (a) to defeat target numbers. Ok, we still have a gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang of question to answer about (a) and (b). How well is (a) suited to the task to reliably defeat the obstacles of (b)? Is there a GM veto on (a)? How does "when does any given situation resolve successfully, unsuccessfully, or become complicated (and how)" get sorted out? How do target numbers get decided? Is there a procedure for those things? Is it transparent and table-facing? What about consequences for failure? How do those get foregrounded/telegraphed and what types of consequences? The reason why these consequence-related questions matter is because it informs whether or not the players can adequately manage their decision-tree and settle on a course of action. And even before these questions above we have the all-important question of "how do we settle matters of what the premise of play actually is in the first place? Who decides on what the nature of protagonism is and how that propels the trajectory of play?" So here is an easy confounder to "does a lower than D&D-typical (lets call it 67-75 %) success rate equate to less agency." Mouse Guard is the 2nd game in the BW family of games. I don't have anything quantitative for you, but over the course of any given Season (which is probably somewhere around 3-4 Missions, look at them like D&D adventuring days), the overall success rate for the Mouse Guard is probably somewhere around 55-60 % outside of Conflicts. That is less than 67-75 %. However, here are several system dynamics to Mouse Guard in relation to that success rate: * Most importantly, Mouse Guard is a Fail Forward system. Failure means either "Success with a Condition/cost" or "Twist (situation becomes complicated by a new obstacle or escalated situation)." That is a big deal by itself. * Players are incentivized to Fail in two different ways; (i) they need to strategically accrue failures to advance all of their PC stuff and (ii) they need to risk failure via using Traits against them to earn Checks (which power the Player's Turn; think Downtime in Blades in the Dark since you're familiar with it) or use Traits to break ties to outright Fail a test. These incentive structures and "failure minigame" affords agency. * Players have widgets/handles/currency to spend/risk in order to amplify their dice pools on any given test. This resource martialing minigame is a large part of agency in this game. * Obstacles are Factored so there is a codified, table-facing procedure for setting Obstacles. This informs player decision-trees and approach to any given obstacle. Better informed players to manage their decision-tree equals more agency. * The Mission Loop is codified and straight-forward so players know what their "work-day" looks like (Test/Conflict to journey from safe haven to Mission Obstacle 1 > If Twist then handle, otherwise Mission Obstacle 2 > If Twist then handle, otherwise Test/Conflict to establish a safe haven in the wild or journey back to a settlement > Player's Turn). Transparent, table-facing loop means better informed player decision-trees across the whole loop; more agency. There are plenty of other things as well, but those are the high points as it pertains to % success. So TLDR; [I]its complicated and system-dependent.[/I] [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
What is player agency to you?
Top