I've seen/heard people say it's "everything a player does with their character". The activity of their character.

I've also seen/heard people say "a player's ability to make meaningful character choices that impact the setting". So the party clears the dungeon and the King makes the now 12th-Level Fighter 'General of his armies' so now the Fighter can go after the Orc hordes threatening the kingdom.

Is it the first thing or the second or both or WTF? People have been crying about the loss of agency for decades. Are GMs evil or misguided or confused? Is this entitled SJW shade or are GMs really stepping on player toes?

Give me notes, because a recent TPK running the original Ravenloft raised issues.

For me, player agency is the ability of the player to control his/her character's thoughts/words/actions within the rules of the game. The latter part is important, because I'm OK with PCs being mind-controlled or impacted by NPCs using social skills so long as the game rules are followed. What I don't like--and feel is a violation of player agency--is a GM going into narration mode and setting up a situation by dictating what the player character thinks/says/does to push to story the GM has in mind. The GM should lay out the situation and let the player make those decisions, whether freely or while dealing with influences imposed on the character through the game's rules.

QuoteWTF IS Player Agency?

When the players setup a PI firm and start LARPing that they Sherlock Holmes now. 

Player Agency is an assumption that the player will have some say over the fate of their character. Some ability to shape the ultimate fate of their character. This is something that my last GM was pretty good about enabling.

It's all about collaboration. Giving a player a voice. Rather than just having the character solely be the victim of the GM's whims.

Some people handle this level of collaboration better than others. And it mostly comes into play when you have players who have a bigger vision of their character than just the character being a murderhobo.

Personally, I like players having goals for their character's ultimate endgame. It helps a GM make getting there all that much more enjoyable.

In the anime fantasy game I am mentoring. I'm playing a Warlock character based on D&D. The character's ultimate fate I envisioned for her is rather grim and somewhat hentai horror. But it is the direction that I felt the character would ultimately end up. An unhappy ending. Both the GM and the other player knows this. And they are helping make the ride getting to that end be as satisfying as possible.

Quote from: Theory of Games on December 20, 2020, 11:30:03 AM
I've seen/heard people say it's "everything a player does with their character". The activity of their character.

I've also seen/heard people say "a player's ability to make meaningful character choices that impact the setting". So the party clears the dungeon and the King makes the now 12th-Level Fighter 'General of his armies' so now the Fighter can go after the Orc hordes threatening the kingdom.

Is it the first thing or the second or both or WTF? People have been crying about the loss of agency for decades. Are GMs evil or misguided or confused? Is this entitled SJW shade or are GMs really stepping on player toes?

Give me notes, because a recent TPK running the original Ravenloft raised issues.

Let's modify your second statement: "A player's ability to make meaningful character choices that impact the character."  No player or character has the right to demand agency over the setting.  Good GMs often meet players halfway (or more) when it comes to setting concerns, when possible, but it's a privilege, not a right.  Also, there are times when a player wants the character to do something that the character can't, won't, or wouldn't (see charm spells, hold person, player vs character knowledge, etc.).  So, like HappyDaze said above, the player's agency is contingent on the rules and circumstances.  But major decisions that affect a character should always be either made by the player or as the consequence of a player choice where a player knows the stakes (walking into a normal room outside of a dungeon with no signs that there is danger or any consequence would be a poor trigger for a serious penalty on characters.  Putting on an unidentified magic belt, on the other hand, has an obvious risk associated so that the character can suffer the consequences without any remorse).

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 20, 2020, 12:04:42 PM
In the anime fantasy game I am mentoring. I'm playing a Warlock character based on D&D. The character's ultimate fate I envisioned for her is rather grim and somewhat hentai horror. But it is the direction that I felt the character would ultimately end up. An unhappy ending. Both the GM and the other player knows this. And they are helping make the ride getting to that end be as satisfying as possible.

Hmmm, let's make a mental picture. Starting with..."hentai horror"... and having an "unhappy ending"... all while "making the ride getting to that end be as satisfying as possible." Not sure if this roleplay is game thing or sex thing.

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 20, 2020, 12:14:15 PM

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 20, 2020, 12:04:42 PM
In the anime fantasy game I am mentoring. I'm playing a Warlock character based on D&D. The character's ultimate fate I envisioned for her is rather grim and somewhat hentai horror. But it is the direction that I felt the character would ultimately end up. An unhappy ending. Both the GM and the other player knows this. And they are helping make the ride getting to that end be as satisfying as possible.

Hmmm, let's make a mental picture. Starting with..."hentai horror"... and having an "unhappy ending"... all while "making the ride getting to that end be as satisfying as possible." Not sure if this roleplay is game thing or sex thing.

The correct answer is both. 

Quote from: Theory of Games on December 20, 2020, 11:30:03 AM
I've seen/heard people say it's "everything a player does with their character". The activity of their character.

I've also seen/heard people say "a player's ability to make meaningful character choices that impact the setting". So the party clears the dungeon and the King makes the now 12th-Level Fighter 'General of his armies' so now the Fighter can go after the Orc hordes threatening the kingdom.

Is it the first thing or the second or both or WTF?

It's the second thing.

However, I don't like the example. That's not player agency, it's the GM deciding something for the character. In my mind, clearing dungeons and leading armies have very little connection. So the promotion seems to be an example of GM choice not player agency.

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 20, 2020, 11:37:41 AM
For me, player agency is the ability of the player to control his/her character's thoughts/words/actions within the rules of the game. The latter part is important, because I'm OK with PCs being mind-controlled or impacted by NPCs using social skills so long as the game rules are followed. What I don't like--and feel is a violation of player agency--is a GM going into narration mode and setting up a situation by dictating what the player character thinks/says/does to push to story the GM has in mind. The GM should lay out the situation and let the player make those decisions, whether freely or while dealing with influences imposed on the character through the game's rules.

I fully endorse your caveat. And to elaborate, Pendragon with it's passions and traits, is an example of a system sometimes imposing controls on what the character feels or does rather than leaving such things entirely up to the whim of the player.

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 20, 2020, 12:14:15 PM
Hmmm, let's make a mental picture. Starting with..."hentai horror"... and having an "unhappy ending"... all while "making the ride getting to that end be as satisfying as possible." Not sure if this roleplay is game thing or sex thing.

Not doing this for titilation. This was decided by talking with the group. I wanted this character to end up sacrificing herself to her patron for the sake of the group. Creepy girl the rest of the group somewhat distrusts redeeming herself in the end.

The GM and other player suggested the hentai influence. And I didn't have any objections.

All of the people involved in the campaign are adults.

I'm sure others have similar examples, maybe even this exact one.

In the Sinsiter Secret of Saltmarsh, the pirates have a ship in a cave. When we played it, we took that ship and had some fun aventures revolving around the boat, sailing around, having a great time.

Player agency, IMO, is when the players grab the reins of the direction of the session/campaign and start driving it around for themselves. They're no longer looking for 'rails'.

This is, again IMO, the bedrock difference between TTRPGs and computer games. We still are in the position where a computer game has to have it's story plotted out, but a human GM can improvise and react to a much (much) wider amount of character actions.

Player agency is when their decisions matter. That the GM is willing to engage with their decisions and have the world react as (ideally) we'd expect it to.

Quote from: Theory of Games on December 20, 2020, 11:30:03 AM
Give me notes, because a recent TPK running the original Ravenloft raised issues.

In a Cyberpunk 2020 game, a corp hunting for us found our safehouse, and sent an AV6 to level it. The flyer pulled up and we had a few turns to get the hell out before it hosed down the apartment with it's minigun.

I had my character say "fuck it", hang out the window and blast it with his assault rifle. The results were as you'd expect. I had to roll up a new character. I've had players do these kinds of "last stands" even when it didn't appear that they needed to. I think this pique comes from a player wanting the assurance that their decisions do matter. That the GM isn't going to coddle them or magically save their character from a terrible decision.

I'm wondering now about the details of your TPK.

Quote from: Theory of Games on December 20, 2020, 11:30:03 AM
I've seen/heard people say it's "everything a player does with their character". The activity of their character.

I've also seen/heard people say "a player's ability to make meaningful character choices that impact the setting". So the party clears the dungeon and the King makes the now 12th-Level Fighter 'General of his armies' so now the Fighter can go after the Orc hordes threatening the kingdom.

Is it the first thing or the second or both or WTF? People have been crying about the loss of agency for decades. Are GMs evil or misguided or confused? Is this entitled SJW shade or are GMs really stepping on player toes?

Give me notes, because a recent TPK running the original Ravenloft raised issues.

I suppose you could use it the first way, but I've only ever seen it used the second way. When someone says "player agency", they mean the opposite of a railroad.

Edit: Your example has nothing to do with player agency, tho. That's just an in-game reward. You don't increase agency by handing out bigger rewards. I think Eirikrautha highlighted the mistake you're making -- it's not about influencing the setting. That can be an end result, but it's really orthogonal to the concept.  Player agency is about being able to make meaningful choices. Sandbox campaigns and open-ended dungeon designs with multiple paths are classic examples of giving players agency. Scene-based adventures where no matter what the players do the climax will be the same, or paths where you have to go from A to B to C to D are examples of setups where the players lack agency.

IMHO, Player Agency is the constant and consistent war against Boxed Text.

During the days of the RPGA and AD&D 2e, modules would have absolutely ridiculous set-ups for the PCs which could not be avoided. Crap like "for no apparent reason your character and the rest of the party members all take their clothes off and walk naked into the Sheriff of Raven's Bluff  jail cells" or "the Magic-Users of the party decide that it is a good idea to leave their spell books behind for this adventure" or "each party member leaves behind their weapons, armor, and all magic items before meeting with the Chief of the Orc warband". These ham-fisted railroad starts would usually be written in Boxes for the adventure requiring the DM to read them aloud, hence Boxed Text.

If you wanted to play in a RPGA module, then your character had to do whatever stupid shit was in the Boxed Text, no matter how nonsensical it was. If you didn't you, you also didn't get to play in the adventure.

End result was that all Player Agency was removed from the adventure just to get the game started.

I understand that this defining something with negative space, but it is how I think of it.

Player Agency is a bullshit term that should be tossed out of an airlock along with anyone babbling about it.

I wrote up a bunch of tedious garbage trying to nail down what player agency is in CRPGs vs. TTRPGS and blah blah blah.


Here's the gist of it:
A player has agency in a game* when they feel as though their back-and-forth with the GM is a conversation**, one in which what they say matters to the GM. That's all. It's about mutual respect and understanding.


*agency here is a wishy-washy bullshit term that people use to say that a game is good because their stupid ideas are taken seriously. Technically, even tic-tac-toe gives its players agency, but that game is boring as fuck and not what players actually want.

**Defined here as the mutually agreeable exchange of thoughts and feelings.

Edit: I found a simpler definition:
Player agency is when players feel powerful.

Edit to the edit: I kind of just want to say "fuck it" to this whole topic now. I think Lordmalachdrim had it right.

Quote from: jeff37923 on December 20, 2020, 02:30:37 PM
IMHO, Player Agency is the constant and consistent war against Boxed Text.

Don't forget the crap GM's who tell you what your character is thinking and doing in order to set up the next scene in their would-be novel.