I have to ask, what do you think player agency is?
Player agency is what the players can decide to do. Things that are player agency:
deciding what to do
deciding how to level up
deciding whether to add smite to an attack
Things that aren't player agency:
what they roll on the dice
how much damage an attack does
how the rules work
Changing a broken rule when it is show to be broken is not taking away player agency. They still rolled a critical hit, they still get to add a load of damage - but now they have to roll for it, because the rule was shown to be clearly broken.
I see. You don't actually know what player agency is. That explains a lot.
What do you consider player agency? Genuine question.
I don't "consider" player agency to be anything, but I can give you a short explaination of what it actually is. You will actually have to read up yourself if you want to find out more. But basically it comes down to the following. The player has control over their own character's decisions. Those decisions have consequences within the game world. The player has enough information to anticipate what those consequences might be before making them. In this case the third point is violated and one could argue that also the second one is.
Ah, I see. You have player agency wrong. Sorry, but you do. How much damage an attack does, based off the rules, is not player agency.
Please read what people write and if you don't understand, just ask. No-one has ever claimed that player agency is "How much damage an attack does, based off the rules".
A player deciding to perform an action for additional damage is player agency, as is making the attack, moving forward, playing a little song, and anything the player decides.
Yes, but for the player to actually have agency those choices must actually have consequences that are in line with those actions.
What the dice decideis not player agency.
And again. No-one is saying that it is or even should be. However, for the player to have agency the player has to be able to at least in some ways predict the outcome. "If I choose to attack I will have to roll to hit, if I roll at least a 17 I will hit and then I will roll for damage." Taking away any part of that because of reasons that the player can't predict or can in no way influence (in this particular case, because the DM screwed up) is, de facto, removing player agency. You might not accept that it is but that doesn't change the fact that it is.
If the player rolls an attack, and the dice say the attack misses, the players agency has not been removed. If the player rolls an attack, and the DM says he misses because the bad guy was an illusion, the players agency has not been removed. If a player combines every ability they have into a single attack to abuse a broken houserule, and the DM says "no, It can't work like that or it's broken, you'll have to roll them", their agency has not been removed
Actually, it has, as been previously explained. But please tell us what it is that you don't understand so that we can explain it simpler so that we can move the discussion forwards.
- though not letting them take back their use of every ability in light of this new information would be. I've assumed that, after they declared "I get auto-140-damage", the DM would say "it doesn't work like that, do you still want to do all this". No doubt you'll consider this additional information to be "moving the goalposts", however. Perhaps you don't know what that term means either.
I'm glad to see that you are moving the goalposts (because, yes, yes it is). Now if you can just stop doing that we might get back to the topic at hand?
As for the rest of your post: You didn't answer my questions, instead content to quibble over "moving the goalposts", and didn't actually give me any reason why the players would even know that the teleport was added on the spur of the moment. When the DM decided something doesn't matter. Ideas aren't cheese, they don't need to sit around for a while to become good. I did literally say I was adding on the spot. I didn't say I was making that obvious to the players. And you haven't told me how it makes the blindest bit of difference.
No need to be rude. If you can't accept people disagreeing with you and pointing out the fallacies in your arguments, perhaps a discussion forum on the interwebz isn't the right place for you. But yes, since I'm not in the least interested in validating your fallacies, I did not adress those issues, since, and I know you know this since I've said so before, that is a completely different topic for a completely different thread.
I don't think anyone has ever lowered a players stats because another player rolled poorly. That's a weird example you've given, and is 100% punishing the player.
And arbitrarily disallowing the player to use the agreed upon house rules is also punishing the player.
This discussion was about a houserule that gave a player max damage on all their abilities on a crit, guaranteeing 140+ damage. See post number 24 of this thread, summarized:
"When I am swinging for in excess of 140 HP damage, on my FIRST attack, the equation of the encounter changes very very quickly."
The player admitted that they knew the rule was broken, and in fairness they told the DM. It's just bad DMing to not respond to it then and there, I suppose.
You say the DM needed to balance the encounter, and I say that is impossible when a crit can do that much damage - except by making them immune to critical hits.
So it's not actually impossible then? Excellent! Case closed. :)
Not many of my questions have been answered. You've attempted to counter them, divert them or avoid them, and I'm starting to wonder if you might be destined for politics one day, but very few have been answered.
As previously stated, I have no desire to help you further derail this discussion. If you want to discuss how to best balance encounters I'd guess that the DM forums is the best place for that, don't you agree?
I just do the way its made, Instant hit, double damage, it fits well this way so people arent making insane damage rolls to instant kill almost anything
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Hi i'm TuxTheReliable! You can call me Tux though. This is the official alt account for TuxTheUnreliable.
No-one has ever claimed that player agency is "How much damage an attack does, based off the rules".
Let's just evaluate this for a second shall we... Looking at one of your posts in this discussion:
Point 5: Arbitrarily negating the players action would be saying their crit isn't actually a crit, or they were attacking an illusion so did nothing. Saying either A: "You won but they got away, injured", or B: "you have to roll your extra dice instead because the homebrew crit rule is not working properly and this attack broke the balance sorry" is not taking away their agency. It might have slight feel-bad when you tell the player to roll their masses of dice instead of getting a flat massive bonus, but then it'll improve the game in the long run.
Except that it is. There's not just a single way of taking away player agency. Whether or not it improves the game is irrelevant when it comes to the issue of messing with the player. Right then and there, you are (I'm using the general 'you').
TL;DR: I say "making them roll for their damage isn't removing their agency", and you said "Except that it is".
Make up your mind.
And again. No-one is saying that it is or even should be. However, for the player to have agency the player has to be able to at least in some ways predict the outcome. "If I choose to attack I will have to roll to hit, if I roll at least a 17 I will hit and then I will roll for damage." Taking away any part of that because of reasons that the player can't predict or can in no way influence (in this particular case, because the DM screwed up) is, de facto, removing player agency. You might not accept that it is but that doesn't change the fact that it is.
So if a player rolls an attack using a normal sword against an iron golem, you'd let that attack succeed if they beat the AC even though the iron golem is immune to nonmagical slashing damage? Because if the player doesn't have a magical weapon, and isn't metagaming with knowledge of the iron golem, then this is a "reason the player can't predict or can in no way influence" that causes the players attack to fail.
When a player fishes for critical hits, they do so because critical hits are better in every way to regular hits. Just because you amend a broken rule to mean they aren't as good as the broken rule would have meant, does not mean that the critical hit isn't both still better than a normal hit and worth fishing for. Their agency isn't removed because you aren't taking away a choice. The player doesn't choose how much damage the attack does, the rules do. And if a rule is broken and needs fixing, fixing it isn't punishing the player, it's fixing the game.
Actually, it has, as been previously explained. But please tell us what it is that you don't understand so that we can explain it simpler so that we can move the discussion forwards.
Fair enough. I don't understand. Please explain to me how amending a rule which dictates how much damage a critical hit does is affecting the players agency. Not whether it's mean (this is subjective) or right to do (also subjective), but how it affects the choices they are able to make - because that is what their agency is.
I'm glad to see that you are moving the goalposts (because, yes, yes it is). Now if you can just stop doing that we might get back to the topic at hand?
I had a smartass answer to this but I'll keep it civil. I think that expecting firm goalposts from the opening comment is a silly thing to do. I can summarise this as a firm statement so that you can stop dodging the topic and actually offer some input that isn't a condescending, intentionally inflammatory response:
Let it be known from hereon that the goalposts are set as this for the hypothetical situation: That a houserule was made which was unknowingly broken; that the player did make an attack and, by lucky chance and not by their own engineering, triggered this rule; that the player then used several abilities, knowing the rule to be broken, and declared the rule gave them over 140 damage guaranteed; that the DM then said the rule was broken and that they should instead roll their damage, and this would be continued from here on out; that the DM also asked them if they still wanted to use all their abilities, like a decent human being would.
The discussion to be had is whether this action from the DM is removing player agency.
No need to be rude. If you can't accept people disagreeing with you and pointing out the fallacies in your arguments, perhaps a discussion forum on the interwebz isn't the right place for you. But yes, since I'm not in the least interested in validating your fallacies, I did not adress those issues, since, and I know you know this since I've said so before, that is a completely different topic for a completely different thread.
Perhaps you would be better suited to a court of law if you expect every statement you read on the interwebz to be carefully structured, thought-out and airtight in its construction ;) this is a human discussion, not one between lawyers!
And arbitrarily disallowing the player to use the agreed upon house rules is also punishing the player.
Only if they then continue using the houserule for everyone else. I wonder if this is what you thought was happening? It would explain a lot.
So it's not actually impossible then? Excellent! Case closed. :)
Isn't making them immune to crits "punishing" the crit-fisher and taking away their agency? ;P
As previously stated, I have no desire to help you further derail this discussion. If you want to discuss how to best balance encounters I'd guess that the DM forums is the best place for that, don't you agree?
Eh, it's a very specific situation. I guarantee if you start a thread saying "how to balance encounters when a houserule lets critical hits deal 140+ damage without rolling", you'll get the response "stop using that houserule".
No-one has ever claimed that player agency is "How much damage an attack does, based off the rules".
Let's just evaluate this for a second shall we...
Let's not, since you do not understand what player agency is and player agency and issues related to it should probably be broken off into a separate thread.
To boil this down to the most central issue, this is an issue because of when the rule was changed. If it is changed after the 140 hit lands, and the DM says something like, "Okay, that's crazy, I think we need to get rid of this house rule," then it's fine. If it is changed before the attack is rolled, with the DM saying something like, "Wait... if you land this attack, and it crits, it's going to do 140, right? That's kinda nuts, we should probably rethink this," then it's fine.
However, if it is changed during the attack's resolution, then it becomes an attack on player agency. The reason for this is simple: When a player makes a decision, they expect that decision to be processed in accordance with the rules that are in effect when the player's decision is declared. Changing the rules after the decision is made, and then using the new rules to process an action declared under the old rules, means that the original decision was retroactively made under false pretenses. It doesn't matter what change is made, any change to the rules that is made after the action is declared and is then applied while processing the action invalidates the player's ability to freely make an informed decision about their character's actions, on the grounds that they were provided with false information. And that is why it affects player agency; the amount of damage dealt has nothing to do with the issue.
Basically, as Darth Vader put it: "I am altering the deal. Pray that I don't alter it further."
Now, even with that said, there is a correct way to do this, and it's actually really simple: Ask. If the DM realises during damage calculation that they vastly underestimated things, the proper solution is to turn to the player and say, "Um, I think this house rule may have been a bad idea, you kinda just one-shot the big bad there. Do you mind if we get rid of that house rule and just roll crit damage like normal?" If they're fine with it, then removing the rule doesn't affect player agency, because the player has altered the terms of their attack, rather than having an alteration forced on them.
That said, even if the rule is removed, the crit's rolled damage could end up being 140 anyways. Considering that Thoruk pointedly ignored my prior comment on this, I get the feeling that they would demand a reroll even if the 140 was strictly RAW.
And I would like to third the notion that any further discussion be moved to its own thread.
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Please read what people write and if you don't understand, just ask. No-one has ever claimed that player agency is "How much damage an attack does, based off the rules".
Yes, but for the player to actually have agency those choices must actually have consequences that are in line with those actions.
And again. No-one is saying that it is or even should be. However, for the player to have agency the player has to be able to at least in some ways predict the outcome. "If I choose to attack I will have to roll to hit, if I roll at least a 17 I will hit and then I will roll for damage." Taking away any part of that because of reasons that the player can't predict or can in no way influence (in this particular case, because the DM screwed up) is, de facto, removing player agency. You might not accept that it is but that doesn't change the fact that it is.
Actually, it has, as been previously explained. But please tell us what it is that you don't understand so that we can explain it simpler so that we can move the discussion forwards.
I'm glad to see that you are moving the goalposts (because, yes, yes it is). Now if you can just stop doing that we might get back to the topic at hand?
No need to be rude. If you can't accept people disagreeing with you and pointing out the fallacies in your arguments, perhaps a discussion forum on the interwebz isn't the right place for you. But yes, since I'm not in the least interested in validating your fallacies, I did not adress those issues, since, and I know you know this since I've said so before, that is a completely different topic for a completely different thread.
And arbitrarily disallowing the player to use the agreed upon house rules is also punishing the player.
So it's not actually impossible then? Excellent! Case closed. :)
As previously stated, I have no desire to help you further derail this discussion. If you want to discuss how to best balance encounters I'd guess that the DM forums is the best place for that, don't you agree?
I agree we have gone off-topic. Player Agency and issues related to it should probably be broken off into a separate thread.
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Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I just do the way its made, Instant hit, double damage, it fits well this way so people arent making insane damage rolls to instant kill almost anything
Hi i'm TuxTheReliable! You can call me Tux though. This is the official alt account for TuxTheUnreliable.
Let's just evaluate this for a second shall we... Looking at one of your posts in this discussion:
TL;DR: I say "making them roll for their damage isn't removing their agency", and you said "Except that it is".
Make up your mind.
So if a player rolls an attack using a normal sword against an iron golem, you'd let that attack succeed if they beat the AC even though the iron golem is immune to nonmagical slashing damage? Because if the player doesn't have a magical weapon, and isn't metagaming with knowledge of the iron golem, then this is a "reason the player can't predict or can in no way influence" that causes the players attack to fail.
When a player fishes for critical hits, they do so because critical hits are better in every way to regular hits. Just because you amend a broken rule to mean they aren't as good as the broken rule would have meant, does not mean that the critical hit isn't both still better than a normal hit and worth fishing for. Their agency isn't removed because you aren't taking away a choice. The player doesn't choose how much damage the attack does, the rules do. And if a rule is broken and needs fixing, fixing it isn't punishing the player, it's fixing the game.
Fair enough. I don't understand. Please explain to me how amending a rule which dictates how much damage a critical hit does is affecting the players agency. Not whether it's mean (this is subjective) or right to do (also subjective), but how it affects the choices they are able to make - because that is what their agency is.
I had a smartass answer to this but I'll keep it civil. I think that expecting firm goalposts from the opening comment is a silly thing to do. I can summarise this as a firm statement so that you can stop dodging the topic and actually offer some input that isn't a condescending, intentionally inflammatory response:
Let it be known from hereon that the goalposts are set as this for the hypothetical situation: That a houserule was made which was unknowingly broken; that the player did make an attack and, by lucky chance and not by their own engineering, triggered this rule; that the player then used several abilities, knowing the rule to be broken, and declared the rule gave them over 140 damage guaranteed; that the DM then said the rule was broken and that they should instead roll their damage, and this would be continued from here on out; that the DM also asked them if they still wanted to use all their abilities, like a decent human being would.
The discussion to be had is whether this action from the DM is removing player agency.
Perhaps you would be better suited to a court of law if you expect every statement you read on the interwebz to be carefully structured, thought-out and airtight in its construction ;) this is a human discussion, not one between lawyers!
Only if they then continue using the houserule for everyone else. I wonder if this is what you thought was happening? It would explain a lot.
Isn't making them immune to crits "punishing" the crit-fisher and taking away their agency? ;P
Eh, it's a very specific situation. I guarantee if you start a thread saying "how to balance encounters when a houserule lets critical hits deal 140+ damage without rolling", you'll get the response "stop using that houserule".
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Let's not, since you do not understand what player agency is and player agency and issues related to it should probably be broken off into a separate thread.
To boil this down to the most central issue, this is an issue because of when the rule was changed. If it is changed after the 140 hit lands, and the DM says something like, "Okay, that's crazy, I think we need to get rid of this house rule," then it's fine. If it is changed before the attack is rolled, with the DM saying something like, "Wait... if you land this attack, and it crits, it's going to do 140, right? That's kinda nuts, we should probably rethink this," then it's fine.
However, if it is changed during the attack's resolution, then it becomes an attack on player agency. The reason for this is simple: When a player makes a decision, they expect that decision to be processed in accordance with the rules that are in effect when the player's decision is declared. Changing the rules after the decision is made, and then using the new rules to process an action declared under the old rules, means that the original decision was retroactively made under false pretenses. It doesn't matter what change is made, any change to the rules that is made after the action is declared and is then applied while processing the action invalidates the player's ability to freely make an informed decision about their character's actions, on the grounds that they were provided with false information. And that is why it affects player agency; the amount of damage dealt has nothing to do with the issue.
Basically, as Darth Vader put it: "I am altering the deal. Pray that I don't alter it further."
Now, even with that said, there is a correct way to do this, and it's actually really simple: Ask. If the DM realises during damage calculation that they vastly underestimated things, the proper solution is to turn to the player and say, "Um, I think this house rule may have been a bad idea, you kinda just one-shot the big bad there. Do you mind if we get rid of that house rule and just roll crit damage like normal?" If they're fine with it, then removing the rule doesn't affect player agency, because the player has altered the terms of their attack, rather than having an alteration forced on them.
That said, even if the rule is removed, the crit's rolled damage could end up being 140 anyways. Considering that Thoruk pointedly ignored my prior comment on this, I get the feeling that they would demand a reroll even if the 140 was strictly RAW.And I would like to third the notion that any further discussion be moved to its own thread.