What is Player Agency?

[Cluedrew]

I have a statement on bullying:

I disapprove of all forms of bullying as I understand the word. So I try to avoid that behaviour, but accept I could slip into it by accident. Which is why I asked if they thought I was. As for others, by form rules you will only be hearing about it if a moderator agrees with me and not from me directly.

[Segev]

Even broken clock seems right twice a day. The phenomenom he describes is sadly common in other hobbies as well. I've been in that position as a scout leader, with me putting a serious effort in providing kids opportunities for different activities, only for them to neglect all of them. And when asked what they would like to do, all you get is a shrug.

Darth Ultron likes to pretend that this is inevitable, and that if you present a hook and players want to pursue something else, it's equivalent to players ignoring all hooks. That does not deny the truth of the fact that people can and do suffer choice paralysis. Presented with multiple options, they start evaluating the opportunity costs of picking any one as too high, and can't choose because they don't want to "miss out" on the others.

Having an "insistent hook" which, if all hooks are ignored, will forcibly drag them into something is a useful tool. (The distinction between this and Darth Ultron's proclaimed methods is that it's a fall back if you do get into "I dunno; what do you wanna do?" cycles.)

To take the scoutmaster example, if a number of activities are presented and none are taken up, the scoutmaster can have one he has determined is the default. If none are chosen, they're doing the SCUBA-assisted Underwater Basket Weaving merit badge today. Provided the activities are all ones they theoretically would enjoy, having the decision made will let them get on with doing an activity.

Choosing "the default" is a choice, but it's an easier choice than a more active one.

Knowably false a priori & demonstrably false each time the test is replicated by a DM that isn't constantly railroading.


It is a badly designed test as any literate person would tell you. The existence of Player Agency vs the Illusion of Player Agency is best observed from inside the DM's mind. You go inside the Player's mind if you are asking about the existence of the Appearance of Player Agency vs the Appearance of Railroad.

Even then, it is obvious you are confusing the direction of the relationship. If you overtly deny Player Agency to the Players --> they will be unhappy. Not this silly claim that unhappy players randomly causes claims of no agency.

	DM Railroads	DM does not Railroad
Player did not have fun	The Railroad was overt enough that the Player noticed and became unhappy. So they will answer No Agency	The Player is unhappy for some reason. Since they had meaningful choices, they will answer Yes Agency
Player had fun	The Player did not notice the DM's railroading or the lack of Agency. They will give a false positive	The Player knows there was Agency since they can cite examples. They will answer Yes Agency

Clearly this does not conform to your ill formed hypothesis. Players will answer "Yes there was Agency" if there was the appearance of Agency. The easiest way to create the appearance of Agency is to actually include Agency. Although there is the possibility for a false positive when asking the question to the wrong person.

I'm not sure why you assume "players had fun" + "DM Railroaded" will get a false positive to the question "did you have agency?" People play rail shooters and go see movies, and know they have no agency, but still can have fun. Playing a linear hack-and-slash dungeon, or playing a module at a convention, you almost never will have meaningful agency, but people can have plenty of fun at those if that's what they go in expecting. Without even having an illusion of agency to fool them into giving a false positive to the "did you have agency?" question.

[Darth Ultron]

Ok, let's try a hypothetical: suppose the system neither needs no has a GM. There are only players, and rules. Do the players have Agency in this system? Why our why not?

Well, no. In this sort of game the players have Control. Again, as Player Agency is not real you can't ever have it, but sure you can say you have it.

However it is not that simple. As I pointed out above, a Player that had Player Agency might still have not enjoyed themselves that day. If so, despite not having had fun, they will still say "Yes, there was Player Agency".

I can agree with your statement that not many players are understand or ''get it''.

So your concerns are warranted, but are generally misplaced when talking about Darth Ultron's threadspaning campaign.

Well, except see you can't just say ''someone is wrong'' because you say so and then say ''well that means I can say or do anything as they are wrong." I don't really expect you to understand that though.

SWhen someone, such as DU or myself, comes at a problem from such an unfamiliar and unexpected angle,

I'd say Unique, as I'm not a member of the Everyone Collective.

the natural human response is to... kill the thing that doesn't fit, actually. Happily, we're more civilized now, and instead default to one of several slightly less objectionable actions, such as to assume the speaker is an idiot (or insane), assume the speaker is joking (or a troll), assume the speaker is ignorant, or, yes, attack the speaker for disturbing the status quo (usually only verbally).

Odd, this does not sound ''natural human'' to me....more like ''dumb caveman proto human''. And sure, put anything in front of such a caveman and they will be like ''smash!''. And it say it is human to just say someone who says something you don't like is an idiot, joking or ignorant is no better.

That is not what humans do....humans have the ability to accept what is different: You think Y, they think X. No one is right or wrong, and you just accept it.

Personally, I'm still holding out hope that there is some more benevolent explanation for why none of us can find common ground to hold a reasonable discussion with someone who so obviously has a lot of good ideas buried beneath all that rubbish.

It is a Sign of the Times and the World we Live In, and not just The Game.

I have a statement on bullying:

I kinda wonder what it was I ever typed that give people the idea that I ''bully''.

[Cozzer]

You know, there's also the fact that DU's behavior is deliberately constructed to gradually push other people into the kind of "bullying" behavior he's a "victim" of. This, of course, would not be an excuse for actual bullying behavior, which I don't think is what's happening here. But come on, he's not pushing people's buttons, he's playing a freaking symphony on them. Don't pretend this isn't exactly what he wants. Then people try to "fix" his "mistakes", mistakenly thinking there's something to fix and/or that it can be fixed, and the whole thread stops being about whatever it was, and becomes about DU and how you should deal with him and whether the others went too far etc.

Every thread in the roleplaying section I've gotten interested in has been derailed in exactly the same way by exactly the same person. Come on. Let's protect future ones. It takes two to tango, except this isn't tango but some kind of terrible dance where everyone just ends up spraining their ankles (I'm better with basketball metaphors, ok?). Just let him play this dance alone. If he actually wants to dance, he knows how to do it properly. He just doesn't want to.

[Segev]

Well, no. In this sort of game the players have Control. Again, as Player Agency is not real you can't ever have it, but sure you can say you have it.

Since DM Agency isn't real, players always have control.

I can agree with your statement that not many players are understand or ''get it''.



Well, except see you can't just say ''someone is wrong'' because you say so and then say ''well that means I can say or do anything as they are wrong." I don't really expect you to understand that though.

It's a pity how DMs don't get that, just because they're wrong, doesn't mean that players aren't right.

I'd say Unique, as I'm not a member of the Everyone Collective.

Odd, this does not sound ''natural human'' to me....more like ''dumb caveman proto human''. And sure, put anything in front of such a caveman and they will be like ''smash!''. And it say it is human to just say someone who says something you don't like is an idiot, joking or ignorant is no better.

That is not what humans do....humans have the ability to accept what is different: You think Y, they think X. No one is right or wrong, and you just accept it.



It is a Sign of the Times and the World we Live In, and not just The Game.



I kinda wonder what it was I ever typed that give people the idea that I ''bully''.

Well, admitting you like to sit down and tell players that you're smashing their characters like a proto-caveman DM might have something to do with it.

[Quertus]

By not being so condescending. That is an awful way to start a rebuttal. It sounds like you think I'm an idiot who doesn't understand the situation.

I don't like the self-congratulatory tone this whole discussion with Darth Ultron has. And that it openly declares the idea of bullying certain people to be perfectly fine, so long as one personally feels it is justified. It's at the same time dangerous, and makes everyone involved look horrible.

At least as far as I'm concerned.

I mean, I guess part of it comes down to me just not liking that I see people who I know can hold a genuinely intelligent and respectful conversation debase themselves to teach Darth Ultron some kind of lesson that he won't even learn.

Or because they apparently like insulting a chatbot that will probably learn from what they say and become even worse in the process.

Hmmm... That wasn't the intended emotion. "Sigh, this is a big conversation (and I know about being a good programmer, so I consider being lazy a virtue). But where to start?" Is my intent clearer that way?

Also, to explicitly state it, I wasn't trying to imply you were an idiot. I was trying to imply that it was your good for being willing to call people out for bullying (regardless of whether you were right or not - and I personally feel some posts were only "valuable" as bullying).

[Cluedrew]

To Cozzer: What do you suggest? I have tried keeping the main topic of a thread alive, but it tends to get buried and I can't tell people to stop posting about the only partially off topic stuff that might be taking up posts. If you have a solution I would be glad to hear it, because there are times where it fits (like the thread Darth Ultron started about the thing most of the topics devolve into) or others where we have finished the main part of the topic (technically this one, although there was a more interesting tangent I wanted to pursue).

To Darth Ultron: About my statement on bullying, it wasn't aimed at you and I was surprized you thought it was.

[Darth Ultron]

Darth Ultron likes to pretend that this is inevitable, and that if you present a hook and players want to pursue something else, it's equivalent to players ignoring all hooks. That does not deny the truth of the fact that people can and do suffer choice paralysis. Presented with multiple options, they start evaluating the opportunity costs of picking any one as too high, and can't choose because they don't want to "miss out" on the others.

Odd, I don't recall typing that? If the players want to hook themselves I'm all for it..it does not matter where the hook comes from.

Having an "insistent hook" which, if all hooks are ignored, will forcibly drag them into something is a useful tool. (The distinction between this and Darth Ultron's proclaimed methods is that it's a fall back if you do get into "I dunno; what do you wanna do?" cycles.)

I very often drag players into a hook. I don't go for the ''lets sit around and do nothing'' idea. If the players really want or need to talk about things endlessly, I recommend they do this any time other then the game time. They can all get together and talk and talk and talk....and then show up for the game and are ready to do something.

Well, admitting you like to sit down and tell players that you're smashing their characters like a proto-caveman DM might have something to do with it.

This is known as being a Meat Grinder DM, and I'm very open about it. If you sit down and play in my game, your special character will be hurt. Don't like that? Don't play in my game.

[Segev]

Odd, I don't recall typing that? If the players want to hook themselves I'm all for it..it does not matter where the hook comes from.



I very often drag players into a hook. I don't go for the ''lets sit around and do nothing'' idea. If the players really want or need to talk about things endlessly, I recommend they do this any time other then the game time. They can all get together and talk and talk and talk....and then show up for the game and are ready to do something.



This is known as being a Meat Grinder DM, and I'm very open about it. If you sit down and play in my game, your special character will be hurt. Don't like that? Don't play in my game.

Now, now, don't deny that you've supported what everyone always says about hooking players. I mean, you don't actually want to do it, because you've said your players won't follow them. Killing their characters is clearly why they come to your games, and they're happy about it. Don't ruin a winning formula!

[Cozzer]

To Cluedrew: I would suggest answering his first questions in a given topic (which are usually quite sensible, and it would be bad to ignore him before he start to provoke, giving him grounds to play the victim card), and just ignoring him as soon as he starts obiviously provoking.

But yeah, the problem is that no solution will ever work if even one or two people get caught in the DU maelstrom, and are active enough to bury the "main topic". You know, protecting is hard mode, destructing is easy mode. But I hope that as more and more people tire of him, sooner or later it will be the DU maelstrom that gets buried by the main topic.

[Frozen_Feet]

Darth Ultron likes to pretend that this is inevitable, and that if you present a hook and players want to pursue something else, it's equivalent to players ignoring all hooks. That does not deny the truth of the fact that people can and do suffer choice paralysis. Presented with multiple options, they start evaluating the opportunity costs of picking any one as too high, and can't choose because they don't want to "miss out" on the others.

Having an "insistent hook" which, if all hooks are ignored, will forcibly drag them into something is a useful tool. (The distinction between this and Darth Ultron's proclaimed methods is that it's a fall back if you do get into "I dunno; what do you wanna do?" cycles.)

To take the scoutmaster example, if a number of activities are presented and none are taken up, the scoutmaster can have one he has determined is the default. If none are chosen, they're doing the SCUBA-assisted Underwater Basket Weaving merit badge today. Provided the activities are all ones they theoretically would enjoy, having the decision made will let them get on with doing an activity.

Choosing "the default" is a choice, but it's an easier choice than a more active one.

You seem to have missed a post. Let's recap: the problem in the scenario under discussion is not decision paralysis. It is player passivity and apathy.

And that's why GM simply moving the game ahead, or the Scoutmaster picking the activity, is not a solution, because it's addressing the wrong problem. I know from experience that just going "fine, since you can't decide between X, Y and Z, we'll do X" is not sufficient to create any sort of interest towards X, when the reason none of X, Y or Z were chosen was because the players/kids deemed them all boring.

[Darth Ultron]

Now, now, don't deny that you've supported what everyone always says about hooking players. I mean, you don't actually want to do it, because you've said your players won't follow them. Killing their characters is clearly why they come to your games, and they're happy about it. Don't ruin a winning formula!

It is true I do want players that are much more ''lets do this'' and not the ones that just sit there like goldfish in a bowl and say ''DM hook us".

And the good players at least try to avoid character death.

DU maelstrom

Humm, needs a better name....

You seem to have missed a post. Let's recap: the problem in the scenario under discussion is not decision paralysis. It is player passivity and apathy.

Makes sense to me. Player passivity and apathy is a good way to put it.

[OldTrees1]

I'm not sure why you assume "players had fun" + "DM Railroaded" will get a false positive to the question "did you have agency?" People play rail shooters and go see movies, and know they have no agency, but still can have fun. Playing a linear hack-and-slash dungeon, or playing a module at a convention, you almost never will have meaningful agency, but people can have plenty of fun at those if that's what they go in expecting. Without even having an illusion of agency to fool them into giving a false positive to the "did you have agency?" question.

I squashed a 3D matrix into a 2D matrix. Rather than list both cases that fit in that box, I listed the one that Darth had been drawing false conclusions from and that highlighted the fallacy of the question being posed to the Players rather than the DM. If it had been a response to you, then I would have included the full 3D matrix to highlight the general independence of the presence vs the perception of presence of Player Agency.

[RedMage125]

It is a badly designed test as any literate person would tell you. The existence of Player Agency vs the Illusion of Player Agency is best observed from inside the DM's mind. You go inside the Player's mind if you are asking about the existence of the Appearance of Player Agency vs the Appearance of Railroad.

	DM Railroads	DM does not Railroad
Player did not have fun	The Railroad was overt enough that the Player noticed and became unhappy. So they will answer No Agency	The Player is unhappy for some reason. Since they had meaningful choices, they will answer Yes Agency
Player had fun	The Player did not notice the DM's railroading or the lack of Agency. They will give a false positive	The Player knows there was Agency since they can cite examples. They will answer Yes Agency

Clearly this does not conform to your ill formed hypothesis. Players will answer "Yes there was Agency" if there was the appearance of Agency. The easiest way to create the appearance of Agency is to actually include Agency. Although there is the possibility for a false positive when asking the question to the wrong person.

While, for the most part, I like to make sure Player Agency is protected in my games (that is, I like the players to be able to make meaningful, informed choices that have an impact on their characters' experiences), I have had an oddball group that disagrees with your chart here.

Basically, a group of people I played with (mostly military, like myself, and their spouses), under their old DM, almost always ran pre-published adventures. When I first took over as DM (old DM got new orders and was stationed in another state), I ran a short Evil campaign (so old DM could play for a bit before he left). When I run Evil campaigns (that is, PCs as Villains), I let the players know that most of the agency is in their hands. Villains are Proactive, Heroes are Reactionary. So they would have to move the plot forward, tell me what plot they wanted to enact and how, and my job would be to provide the world and how it reacted to them.

This group was PARALYZED by the absolute freedom of choice. They had a gist of what they wanted to do (overthrow a thieve's guild from within), but when it came to the "what do we do next?" question, they often spent hours talking without making any constructive decisions.

Fats forward about a month, the Evil Campaign story arc ended with a satisfying conclusion. The rest of the players (the ones who were going to be in the next game) came to me and asked me for, and I quote "a more structured storyline" because "they weren't big fans of being able to choose to do ANYTHING". I was floored. I've never seen this. I asked them, straight-up "are you guys asking me to give you a railroad plotline?". They considered it and said "We would be fine with that".

So how this relates to your chart...I object to the idea that players who had fun when the DM was Railroading results in any kind of "False Positive". There exists a breed of players out there who do not value Player Agency, and in fact, may find it to be an obstacle to Fun.

Mind you, this does not affect what I said about Player Agency. I DO value it, and when I DM, I make sure the story I write for the plot is open-ended enough to allow for the players' choices to alter where the story goes. But I do not believe that Player Agency is some kind of be-all, end-all goal. Player FUN is. I firmly believe that the ONLY "wrong" way to play D&D is where the people at your table are not having fun.

I don't necessarily agree with Darth_Ultron's methods for the way I run a game, and I certainly find his assertions of how he is somehow a "unique and independent thinker" that stands in opposition to the "collective"-as if that somehow makes him superior-to be petty and juvenile. HOWEVER, if all the people who play with him don't care about Player Agency, and they are all knowingly consenting to participate in a "meat grinder" style of game wherein a high attrition rate is expected...who are any of us to say that his style is "wrong"? Are we not undermining the very concept of "no wrong way to play" by telling him that HIS style is wrong? If he's got one unhappy player with his style and 3 or 4 happy ones, I recommend that one guy leave. I personally know a few people who would like to occasionally test their gaming mettle against such a meat grinder (maybe not as the ONLY style of play, but once in a while). If ALL of his players hate his style and are not having fun, then yes...he would be playing the game "wrong". As we have no barometer of the fun his players are having, we cannot say yea or nay to that.

[Cluedrew]

I asked them, straight-up "are you guys asking me to give you a railroad plotline?". They considered it and said "We would be fine with that".

Well by my definition of a railroad (forcing the other players+ to take a particular path), that makes in not a railroad. Instead it is just a linear adventure. And if they asked for a planned plot, you are hardly forcing them to take it.

Aside, aside and relating to "What is Player Agency?". I don't really feel this is low player agency game, although I suppose it is lower. Because there are many areas of a game agency can be exerted. Think about Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy, not only do you not control the overall plot but you often don't get to control the characterization of the PCs or what they say. Yet there is still agency in the battles, exploration and equipment. You can play a table top game for the same reasons.

I feel you aren't taking full advantage of the medium if you stop there, but that is just the purist in me talking. I don't think I have to explain how that sort of game can still be fun. If anyone does need an explanation, read ReMage125's post again. My point is simply that agency exists in different areas and at different levels.

[Koo Rehtorb]

You know, I think if you have to go as far as to dehumanize the person you are talking to by callimg them 'it', you have gone past reasonable opposition and gone straight into manic bullying.

Also, your argument that you as a collective not okay with bullying does not seem very convincing given that Koo Rehtorb just literally admitted to it being okay in Darth Ultron's case, and the fact that half of your posts seem less concerned with calling him out on saying stupid things but rather just sling insults at him.

Seriously, nobody is looking good here. Whatever was reasonable about you opposing Darth Ultron is long gone. At this point it's just people bullying an easy target so they can feel better about themselves. Doesn't matter if he is abusive, and whether anyone thinks he 'deserves' it.

People who speak up about their terrible destructive opinions and behaviour need to be soundly mocked for them, lest we risk it becoming normalized. All that is necessary for the triumph of evil GMs is that good GMs do nothing, or something.

[kyoryu]

Mind you, this does not affect what I said about Player Agency. I DO value it, and when I DM, I make sure the story I write for the plot is open-ended enough to allow for the players' choices to alter where the story goes. But I do not believe that Player Agency is some kind of be-all, end-all goal. Player FUN is. I firmly believe that the ONLY "wrong" way to play D&D is where the people at your table are not having fun.

Of course.

The problem that people need to be aware of is that for some people, agency is the fun. So if you take that away, without at least being honest and letting the person make a decision, you take away the fun.

I don't necessarily agree with Darth_Ultron's methods for the way I run a game, and I certainly find his assertions of how he is somehow a "unique and independent thinker" that stands in opposition to the "collective"-as if that somehow makes him superior-to be petty and juvenile.

The "Collective" is the funniest thing I've read, though it's about par for the course here. It's just funnier than most of the unsupported strawmen.

HOWEVER, if all the people who play with him don't care about Player Agency,

I absolutely believe that his methods, knowingly or not, explicitly select out those people that care about agency as "bad players". I'm not so sure that's done in a healthy way based on his descriptions, but I'm not there and I have incomplete info.

and they are all knowingly consenting to participate in a "meat grinder" style of game wherein a high attrition rate is expected...who are any of us to say that his style is "wrong"?

I have maintained from the beginning that, regardless of my preferences, low agency and railroad games clearly appeal to some people. And I've got no problem with meatgrinders.

Are we not undermining the very concept of "no wrong way to play" by telling him that HIS style is wrong?

Very few people are saying that his way of playing is necessarily wrong. There's some descriptions that sound... almost abusive. Like, by his descriptions, it sounds like the way he weeds out players that care about agency is to basically push people around, and anyone that pushes back gets labeled a "bad player" and ejected.

But the game style itself? Nothing wrong with low agency, railroady games.

What people *do* get on him about is his discussion style, which seems to mostly revolve around strawment, ad hominem attacks, and non sequiturs.

If he's got one unhappy player with his style and 3 or 4 happy ones, I recommend that one guy leave.

Of course. If you're doing an adventure path, and someone wants a game with more agency, they should leave (or, at least discuss witht eh group and see if there's a compromise. Similarly, if you're in a more open game, and people really want more of a railroad, that person should leave. Game with people that have compatible styles and goals.

[Pleh]

People who speak up about their terrible destructive opinions and behaviour need to be soundly mocked for them, lest we risk it becoming normalized.

Actually, this seems a terrible, destructive opinion and behavior. There is tremendously little to be gained by this reaction; if the target of ridicule were receptive to correction, mockery is likely unnecessary. If they are not receptive, mockery will only make them dig their heels and become more defensive.

I started into these threads assuming everyone receptive. I have since altered this understanding. I now target focused points that seem interesting to dig into discussion. I don't do much to try to convince others.

[RedMage125]

I feel you aren't taking full advantage of the medium if you stop there, but that is just the purist in me talking.

Lol, believe me, I generally agree with you, and was quite shocked when they asked me. However, since my personal bias DOES agree with you, I gradually introduced a little more and more choice as the next campaign wore on. First, I had NPCs lay out multiple options, any of which would be successful paths to take, then later it was some binary choices that could have meaningful impact. I was basically trying to wean them towards being able to enjoy having meaningful agency.

But I appreciate the compliment, thank you.

The problem that people need to be aware of is that for some people, agency is the fun. So if you take that away, without at least being honest and letting the person make a decision, you take away the fun.

I quite agree, you will note that what I said about D_U's game was predicated on "the players know what kind of game they're getting into".

The "Collective" is the funniest thing I've read, though it's about par for the course here. It's just funnier than most of the unsupported strawmen.

I absolutely believe that his methods, knowingly or not, explicitly select out those people that care about agency as "bad players".

What people *do* get on him about is his discussion style, which seems to mostly revolve around strawment, ad hominem attacks, and non sequiturs.

Oh, yes, I quite agree about his debate tactics. No argument there. I just had a bit of a vibe about people attacking him for his style of playing, and the sense that it made him a bit defensive, and his abrasiveness got worse. It doesn't excuse his behavior-not at all. But I think perhaps "the collective" (that is funny) may have aggravated the open sore.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Actually, this seems a terrible, destructive opinion and behavior. There is tremendously little to be gained by this reaction; if the target of ridicule were receptive to correction, mockery is likely unnecessary. If they are not receptive, mockery will only make them dig their heels and become more defensive.

It isn't about changing their mind. It's about not allowing it to pass unchallenged, because if people don't challenge awful opinions then they seem more normal to neutral observers.

And to be clear, this doesn't extend to someone having a difference of preferences over gaming styles. There's plenty of room for many varied and acceptable preferences and civil disagreements between people. Darth Ultron routinely crosses lines where "difference of preferences" doesn't cover it any more.

[pwykersotz]

It isn't about changing their mind. It's about not allowing it to pass unchallenged, because if people don't challenge awful opinions then they seem more normal to neutral observers.

And to be clear, this doesn't extend to someone having a difference of preferences over gaming styles. There's plenty of room for many varied and acceptable preferences and civil disagreements between people. Darth Ultron routinely crosses lines where "difference of preferences" doesn't cover it any more.

Now this is a terrifying opinion.

[OldTrees1]

So how this relates to your chart...I object to the idea that players who had fun when the DM was Railroading results in any kind of "False Positive". There exists a breed of players out there who do not value Player Agency, and in fact, may find it to be an obstacle to Fun.

IF a DM Railroads, and the Players do not notice, and the Players are asked if they had Player Agency, they are likely to answer "Yes they had Agency". This is caused a false positive (the signal you get out of the experiment is the opposite of the truth of the matter). You got a signal "There was agency" when we know that case was one of "There was not agency".

Consider if I checked the weather in an attempt to predict if it was a Tuesday or not. If I assumed rain --> Tuesday, then any time it rained on a Friday would be a false positive. Having false positives or false negatives without accounting for them via additional tests or statistical analysis implies your test is fallacious and worth scrapping.

So how does this relate? Darth's test of asking the Players whether or not the DM allowed Player Agency that session and then separating that data based upon the unrelated statistic of whether they had fun that session or not is similarly flawed in that all 4 quadrants can have either a false positive (when the DM Railroads but the Players did not notice regardless of if they had fun) or a false negative (when the DM provided Player Agency but the Players did not notice regardless of if they had fun).

If you check Darth Ultron's post that I was replying to, you will realize neither of us were talking about the Players that have fun when they know they had no Player Agency.


So regardless of your preference for game structure:
1) You can agree that the test Darth Ultron proposed is full of false positives and false negatives thus invalidating the conclusions Darth is attempting to draw.
2) That Player Agency is not merely code for if the Players had fun that session.

[Darth Ultron]

if all the people who play with him don't care about Player Agency, and they are all knowingly consenting to participate in a "meat grinder" style of game wherein a high attrition rate is expected...who are any of us to say that his style is "wrong"?

I'm sure most of my players would say my game has a high amount of Player Agency, if they were the type of Collective Players that believed such things. Of course they are also just going by the idea that ''if they had fun, then the game had Player Agency''.

And I'd tell them it is an illusion, if they asked.

If ALL of his players hate his style and are not having fun, then yes...he would be playing the game "wrong". As we have no barometer of the fun his players are having, we cannot say yea or nay to that.

Well, even if all the players hate the game, it does not make the game wrong.....it is just wrong for those couple of players.

Darth Ultron routinely crosses lines where "difference of preferences" doesn't cover it any more.

I do wonder what lines you see crossed?

IF a DM Railroads, and the Players do not notice, and the Players are asked if they had Player Agency, they are likely to answer "Yes they had Agency". This is caused a false positive (the signal you get out of the experiment is the opposite of the truth you wanted the experiment to reveal).

Well, I'd note the players will also had to have fun and like the game to say it had Player Agency too. But it's not exactly a false positive, it is more just how clueless people are.

If you check Darth Ultron's post that I was replying to, you will realize neither of us were talking about the Players that have fun when they know they had no Player Agency.

Well, fun is the only way to really judge if a player had ''agency'', as there is nothing else to even remotely base it on. The Average Game does not tell the players every single tiny detail about every single thing in the whole game. So the players can't ''know'' anything for sure...unless the DM rolls over and tells them. And sure, a lot of DM's do this to make their players like them(as it works). I never have and never will tell any player any detail about the game; as far as the players are concerned, everything is unknown.

[Pleh]

It isn't about changing their mind. It's about not allowing it to pass unchallenged, because if people don't challenge awful opinions then they seem more normal to neutral observers.

The opinion can be challenged without resorting to public defamation. Peaceful resistance is almost certainly a better strategy. Also, there is a danger of creating sympathy for the opinion you attack if neutral observers perceive excessive force being used on your part.

[OldTrees1]

Well, I'd note the players will also had to have fun and like the game to say it had Player Agency too. But it's not exactly a false positive, it is more just how clueless people are.

Well, fun is the only way to really judge if a player had ''agency'', as there is nothing else to even remotely base it on. The Average Game does not tell the players every single tiny detail about every single thing in the whole game. So the players can't ''know'' anything for sure...unless the DM rolls over and tells them. And sure, a lot of DM's do this to make their players like them(as it works). I never have and never will tell any player any detail about the game; as far as the players are concerned, everything is unknown.

If there was no X and your test returns that there was X, that is a false positive.

If there was no Player Agency (and no, Players having fun is not the same as Player Agency) but your test returns a statement that "there was Player Agency", then that is a false positive you failed to account for in the design of your experiment.

Furthermore we can look at RedMage's example where their Players had too much Player Agency and did not have a fun session. You predicted that they would cry that there was no Player Agency. Instead, as a resounding refutation of your hypothesis, those Players said they did have Player Agency. So clearly the lack of enjoyment does not imply Players will cry that there was no Player Agency.

Player Agency is not merely code for if the Players had fun. If you can learn nothing else in this thread, learn that Player Agency is the ability to make meaningful choices rather than your straman about it being code for enjoyment.

[Koo Rehtorb]

The opinion can be challenged without resorting to public defamation.

Perhaps we're speaking about different things? I don't support lying about Darth Ultron. Pointing out the numerous awful things he's actually said is quite sufficient. My favourite is (paraphrasing), that cheating on your spouse isn't wrong if you don't get caught.

There is no moral obligation to treat everyone's thoughts and opinions as equally valid.

[Max_Killjoy]

The opinion can be challenged without resorting to public defamation. Peaceful resistance is almost certainly a better strategy. Also, there is a danger of creating sympathy for the opinion you attack if neutral observers perceive excessive force being used on your part.

The neutral observers should consider that when they come into the middle of the discussion, they often miss the context, which in this case consists of an endless list of examples of the "target" more than earning the disgust being shown by other posters.

It's all well and good to talk in theory about how ideally we all get access to the public well. But what are people supposed to do when someone like DU has absolutely and repeatedly proven themselves utterly determined to poison the public well -- by defecating in it?

Personally, I think at some point we have to point at that person and say out loud, "Don't let that one near your well, he's going to take a giant crap in it".

Also... it's not defamation if it's true.

[RazorChain]

I kinda gave this discussion and all the railroading ones a miss because I saw that DU was participating. All those discussion devolve into proving DU wrong and all forum members know that he's wrong

But

[Darth Ultron]

Player Agency is not merely code for if the Players had fun. If you can learn nothing else in this thread, learn that Player Agency is the ability to make meaningful choices rather than your straman about it being code for enjoyment.

Except the two will all ways be linked for Everyone Collective players. If the had fun, X must be true as it is the only way they think they can have fun. If they did not have fun, then X is false for the same reasons.

No Player who is a True Believer in Player Agency will ever say ''that game was no fun at all even slightly, but it had a super ton of Player Agency''.

Take your slain mentor example from a couple pages back, it still works out to: Fun= Player Agency.

Player Agency does not matter and is in fact just an illusion. If you can give up something and not notice you even lost it, then it does not matter much at all.

High, or Pure, Player Agency is Free Form: a player can have a character do anything on a whim and no one can say anything about it ever. Then you start to chip away at that for other RPGs. First you have the game, game setting, game rules and game concept. Then you have the social contract, common sense, and social norms. Then you have the other players and the DM. Then you have any self imposed things from yourself. And finally you have the story, plot or whatever you want to call whatever the game has that makes it not just a random free form mess.

Just look at that list, it is huge. It is going from having it all, to nothing...or so little that it is next to nothing.

[jindra34]

Except the two will all ways be linked for Everyone Collective players. If the had fun, X must be true as it is the only way they think they can have fun. If they did not have fun, then X is false for the same reasons.

No Player who is a True Believer in Player Agency will ever say ''that game was no fun at all even slightly, but it had a super ton of Player Agency''.

So despite not being one of the Everyone Collective (tm) players you understand how they think better than they do? You may have a better time convincing people if you used things OTHER than your own statements as evidence to prove your point. Especially since FUN is the sum of all the factors. If you drop the amount of agency but boost other elements players want it can still work out well. A fine touch, and good read is the most important skill of a DM/GM after all.



Anyway my opinions on Player Agency, what is, and WHY its good for the game. Player agency is the confluence of player freedom, player action consequence and versimilitude. It helps keep the players engaged and ward of monster/threat of the week apathy. Or just apathy in general. Its probably the number one factor of continued buy in. And personally? Personally I can have plenty of fun in a game where the DM doesn't give enough room for agency. Without stepping on the other players fun feet. Though it may be a bit smashing for the setting.