Quote from: Azraele;1032325What's the appeal of roleplaying if the dice dictate what you feel and do?

"Roll to care about the quest-giver's request"

"Roll to be brave enough to enter the dungeon"

"Roll to contemplate your life decisions as the ogre bears down on you"

Wouldn't it be more interesting to, y'know, roleplay that stuff? Make decisions about who your character is? Define your character through those choices?

Why give your agency over to the idiot-god of the dice? Do you routinely flip coins to make major life decisions like Two-Face?

Games have rules for exhaustion, dsisease, death, curses... Do we really need rules to dictate impulse control? Cortisol levels?

Like I'm all for realism and grit but come on

I understand you might get tired of your players always being like "I stoically choose the difficult and heroic option because GOOD GUY" and it's not actually hard for them in real life. Stop running for boring assholes. Find a player who's like "My character is addicted to opium and has poor impulse control" and have yourself a ball. It worked for me!

The idea is it makes the character more "real", as if they actually exist as their own person, where even you can't tell them what to do. They have their own personality. The more the game trends in that direction, the more you're like their conscience that is along for the ride, or one of the angels or devils on their shoulder telling them what to do.

Quote from: Simlasa;1032149I don't mind some loss of control... Willpower rolls, Magical compulsion, Sanity loss, disease, addictions and obsessions, possession by spirits, drug-induced malleability/confusion/delusion, imprisonment... but no one I know likes it when the GM just tells you what your PC wants/feels/thinks/chooses with no such reason.

This is my view too.

I'm on the fence about things such as 5e traits and flaws, and the inspiration mechanic that goes with it. My gut feeling is I dont like them; I'd rather players just to RP their guy as much or as little as they like. I am a big believer in "show not tell/write down" your PC's personality.

Hero does a good job with making flaws occur on 8 or less, 11 or less, or 14 or less depending on how often you want that flaw to occur in game (and more often = more points). Thus, it becomes an interesting situation whether your flaw affects the game, and whether it hits at a really bad time.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1032328The only thing I find more cringey than intellectual wankery over elfgames, is mocking intellectual wankery over elfgames. There's a sweet spot.

If a person is a GM worth their salt, why shouldn't they put some skull work into how they can make their games more cool and fun? Or is that overthinking things?

It's the overly intellectually pretentious vocabulary.

Why not "choices?"  Or "meaningful choices?"

As George Orwell said, always use the smallest word that works.

Quote from: Azraele;1032325What's the appeal of roleplaying if the dice dictate what you feel and do?

"Roll to care about the quest-giver's request"

"Roll to be brave enough to enter the dungeon"

"Roll to contemplate your life decisions as the ogre bears down on you"

Wouldn't it be more interesting to, y'know, roleplay that stuff? Make decisions about who your character is? Define your character through those choices?

Why give your agency over to the idiot-god of the dice? Do you routinely flip coins to make major life decisions like Two-Face?

Games have rules for exhaustion, dsisease, death, curses... Do we really need rules to dictate impulse control? Cortisol levels?

Like I'm all for realism and grit but come on

I understand you might get tired of your players always being like "I stoically choose the difficult and heroic option because GOOD GUY" and it's not actually hard for them in real life. Stop running for boring assholes. Find a player who's like "My character is addicted to opium and has poor impulse control" and have yourself a ball. It worked for me!

Read Le Morte d'Arthur.  Then read Pendragon 5th edition, including the designer's notes chapter.  All will be made clear.

There's a similar breakdown in wargames.
Some wargames give the player perfect knowledge and control over his troops. All commands get through, all commands are obeyed. But there are other (generally less popular) wargames that throw a lot of fog onto the battlefield, add 'friction' to the game to represent the vagaries of actual battles. Some treat the players orders to the troops as little more than suggestions, that might not even reach their intended ears.
I generally prefer the latter... games like 5150 and Chain of Command... where I have less than perfect control, because it just feels more plausible and requires more than just showing up with the most obsessively min-maxed army.

Quote from: Greentongue;1032133Why is Player Agency so critical when Real Life doesn't always give it?

Because real life doesn't always give it.

If I want a long boring story with few real choices and no point to it, I have my life, I don't need to sit around a table of geeks with a book of rules to get it.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1032327Nope, you are wrong.

No, you're wrong.  Wow, look how easy it is to do this.  You're wrong.  Nope, you're wrong.  Wrong wrong wrong.  Wrongity wrong wrong.  WRONG!  Try again, Steve, because you're wrong.

Make a real argument.

QuoteThough given your source material, it wouldn't be the first time that an overly narrowed definition was hijacked by that crowd to try to mean less than it is.

Hijacked?  Who, other than that crowd, gives a shit about "player agency?"  As far as I know, that crowd is the crowd that introduced "agency" into the discussion.

Quote from: Azraele;1032325Why give your agency over to the idiot-god of the dice? Do you routinely flip coins to make major life decisions like Two-Face?

Games have rules for exhaustion, dsisease, death, curses... Do we really need rules to dictate impulse control? Cortisol levels?

Like I'm all for realism and grit but come on

I understand you might get tired of your players always being like "I stoically choose the difficult and heroic option because GOOD GUY" and it's not actually hard for them in real life. Stop running for boring assholes. Find a player who's like "My character is addicted to opium and has poor impulse control" and have yourself a ball. It worked for me!

Not everyone who wants to play a character addicted to opium with has poor impulse control can easily relate to such a character.
Having a mechanic that provide a frame work for that seems helpful not a plague on gaming.
=

When I hear the term player agency I don't mean having full control over your characters personality and behaviour (pendragon traits don't intefere with player agency) but having the ability to meaningfully influence events so you don't get the situation I had recently where the gm said "you can't succeed at that point, the module says I need that guy later on".

Quote from: Greentongue;1032389Not everyone who wants to play a character addicted to opium with has poor impulse control can easily relate to such a character.
Having a mechanic that provide a frame work for that seems helpful not a plague on gaming.
=

Providing a framework  /= The dice playing your character

The first is fine

The second is indeed a plague on gaming

Quote from: Skepticultist;1032379No, you're wrong.  Wow, look how easy it is to do this.  You're wrong.  Nope, you're wrong.  Wrong wrong wrong.  Wrongity wrong wrong.  WRONG!  Try again, Steve, because you're wrong.

Make a real argument.

Pot, meet kettle.  I'm returning the favor you demonstrated when you entered the conversation.  I made an argument in my opening post, which you said was "wrong" and then promptly ignored. Oh, you had some text, but none of it pertained to what I said.   So go back there and address my argument, or I'm done with you.

Beside, in my second post, I wasn't talking to you.  I was talking about you for the benefit of anyone else that might have thought I considered your answer useful.  Capiche?

Another reason why player agency feels so important is because, despite all the research showing the effects of certain chemicals on behavior, most everyone THINKS they're in control of themselves all the time.

Even the addict thinks they're choosing to remain an addict by their free choice and that they can stop any time they want... they just don't want to stop right now. That's why getting an addict to admit they're NOT in control is such an important step in overcoming the addiction.

No one experiences giving in to say, nicotine addiction, as losing control... from their perspective they've chosen to give into the craving.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1032407Pot, meet kettle.  I'm returning the favor you demonstrated when you entered the conversation.  I made an argument in my opening post, which you said was "wrong" and then promptly ignored. Oh, you had some text, but none of it pertained to what I said.   So go back there and address my argument, or I'm done with you.

You're delusional, petty and ridiculous.  I didn't say you were wrong, I said you were talking about character agency, not player agency.  You just said "You're wrong" like a stupid, dull-witted blockhead, and now I see you did that because you're a petty, infantile little child of a man, and not at all worth talking to.  Enjoy your life of being a useless, ignorant cretin, you dumb sack of crap.

QuoteBeside, in my second post, I wasn't talking to you.  I was talking about you for the benefit of anyone else that might have thought I considered your answer useful.  Capiche?

How very Mean Girls of you, you sad, pathetic little shit.

Well, for the benefit of our audience:  Everyone, gather round, listen up.  Steven Mitchell is a fucking idiot  and he has no idea what he's talking about.  None of  you really does.  You're all talking in circles at each other, because you're all ignorant.  There's nothing inherently wrong with being ignorant, unless you're a small, petty little man with a fragile ego like this idiot Steven Mitchell, who is such a pathetic failure of a human being, with such a fragile, easily shattered ego that he turns into a little fucking bitch when someone offers a polite correction.  Don't be like Steve, be a grown-up, be an adult.

What's being called "player agency" in this thread is not what the people who introduced that term into the lexicon mean by "player agency."  You all are talking about playing the game.  It's a stupid, pointless conversation.  Here, let me wrap it all up for you:

Q:  Is a player in control of their character's actions?  

A: Yes, otherwise why are we calling them players?  What are they playing if not their characters?

Q: Is it ever okay for the GM to take away a player's control of their character?

A: That depends on the rules of the system being used.

Q: Is it ever okay for the GM to take away a player's control of their character outside of the rules?

A: Taking control of a player's character and making decision for that character against the player's wishes and outside the structure of the rules is a dick move and it you do that, you're a shitty DM and a bad person.  A DM should never tell a player "Your character wouldn't do that."  If you disagree with me on this point, the  you are a shitty DM and a bad person.  No reasonable person disagree on this point, it's fucking obvious and boring.

This argument was settled decades ago, in the early days of D&D.  

Q: Is calling a player exercising control over their character "player agency" meaningful?

A: No, it adds nothing to the discussion.  It's pointless jargon, and it means now -- thanks to fucking useless idiotic children like Steven "Most Useless Fucker On the Planet" Mitchell -- that we have no term for discussing the player ability to add facts to the setting.  Thanks Steven, you useless fucker.

What's with the influx of dimwits like Skepticultist recently? Can we institute some sort of poll test as part of the registration processes to weed people like him out?