Kind of accidentally started a debate in this thread - Beholder's Charm Ray - but I didn't want to derail the rules lawyering there to talk about the philosophy of the game.
How do you feel, as a player, when in-game effects temporarily deprive you of your agency over your character? I'm talking about effects like Dominate Person, used by NPCs against PCs.
On the one hand, I know it always subjectively sucks when you don't get to play or make decisions temporarily during the game.
However, I think is almost always enhancing to the narrative when it happens. Whenever something unexpected happens, it can shake your party out of their habits and make them think on their feet. And having a member of the party work against the party is quite unexpected. If you can just roll with it, I think you can have a lot of fun.
As a DM, I do recommend you check with players to see if they have any boundaries regarding this. I think for some people feeling loss of agency can be especially acute, or bring up trauma.
I think it sucks, but in the same way taking a hit from a Fire Ball or Great Axe does. It is a possible effect that adventurers may have to face one day.
Spell effects etc can be frustrating but I can deal, they're something I expect to come up. The kind of temp loss of agency that I don't like are things like DM-introduced cut scenes. I guess the more it feels like railroading/disabling cooperative storytelling, the less I like it. Temp spell effects still let you make active decisions, and force you to think about 'what would my PC know versus what I the player know,' and I do like that.
I would hate it for the DM to prevent me playing or making decisions, but I don't think that is necessary. If an NPC casts dominate person on my character and I fail the save when my turn comes I think the DM should just say "Your master tells you to kill the wizard", leaving me the choice on how to do it. It requires a certain amount on maturity on behalf of the player and the party, if I am say a fighter do I use action surge (probably)? If he falls unconcious do I still attack (probably depends on whether the party have the ability to Revify). Why should the DM control my character when I am perfectly capable of controlling it myself.
It has never happened to me with dominate person, it has happened with charm person a couple of times, then I would either try to stop my friends fighting new "other friend" of attack guty guys I don't know that appear to be friends with my "other friend" but ar etrying ot kill my (real) friends, and it has happened with feedlemind where I had great fun fighting with beastial instincts (I was playing a monk so had to decide what features were instinctive and what requires some leel of intelligence to use)
There are so many features that while you are charmed you have extra effects, dominate person is one such, a succubus charm is similar. For this reason when a player is charmed they need ot be told of the full effect and not just say you are charmed.
I do find it frustrating when I get hit with an effect like paralyzed or stunned and can't make the save a couple of times I have gone though a whole battle and all I have done is fail a saving throw at the end of each of my turns (once in particular comes to mind, I only needed something like a natural 9 but I failed all 5 rounds of the battle even with the bard throwing me a couple of inspirations.
Mind control spells are bound to happen. Provided the DM isn't just forcing the issue - i.e. I'm allowed to try to pass the save, and the save DC was set ahead of time with an actual grounding in the rules (unlike many monsters in the MM, who have save DCs that don't match their own statline) - and provided the baddie slinging the effect has a narratively good reason to be in the, well, narrative, then it's completely expected for such things to happen. I'm going to roll my eyes hard if the mind control can't be resisted or if the baddie slinging it has nothing to do with anything else - but that latter bit isn't mind control specific. I'll roll my eyes the same way at any random encounter that serves literally no purpose.
Unless the DM decides to Jaeger the PC, being charmed is no more depriving a player of agency than when they create a personality and actually roleplay it, or find themselves in a dungeon with stone walls. The character temporarily has a different set of priorities and limitations, and can attempt to achieve those priorities as their character would. (D&D is a game. Games have rules. Adhering to those rules is simply part of the process.)
If a character is Dominated and told "Kill your friends", the player still gets a rich experience in which they can explore a side of their character that is normally off limits in a friendly game. A Bard might try to trick their allies with words, while a Barbarian might just go in full tilt. A clever player might pull a "Batman" and know all of their allies' weaknesses.
Now, there are plenty of players who are uncomfortable playing the villain and will metagame their actions to benefit their party, but that's it's own issue.
edit: I was just speaking to loss of agency rather than having my agency overridden as with certain charm effects. I don't find Dominate Person problematic in that regard. There is a separation between the caster and me. That said, something like allowing persuasion checks against PCs to convince them to change their minds about something is a no-go. My thoughts are my own, in character or out. They can be influenced magically, and I'll play that out, but that's a matter of being in an altered state, not my regular thought patters. At most, I'd accept persuasion being used the same as deception, which is to say I might be convinced that a character is or is not lying about something.
That was the debate that cropped up in the thread about Beholder's Charm Ray, if you want to check it out.
Dominate Person is objectively horrible. Use in a game/player agency aside, an effect that can force a character to kill themselves or their loved ones or betray the ruler they’ve been loyal to all their lives or reveal the location of the Thing of Ultimate Thinginess their ancestors kept safe for 33 generations or something like that is absolutely, truly, no question about it, soul crushingly horrible. I’m not saying this should never be used by DMs; in fact, I think it’s something DMs should absolutely at least consider using. But even disregarding the issue of player agency, those DM should absolutely also consider the potential impact of what the use of such an ability will have both for positive (drama!) and negative (also drama, just the bad kind).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
With competent role-players, most charm spells are not an issue. If you can trust the player to role-play the moment accurately, then the player never actually loses agency, its just that their goals in the moment change.
Now, with dominate person, I would, as a DM, never want to use the "you take total and precise control..." portion of the spell, because that does eliminate player agency. Luckily, I trust my players, and would be content with the issuing of commands and letting them figure out how they would fulfill them "to the best of their ability"
Now, if there was a particular player who has IRL issues with agency, that is a different story entirely; of course you should be sensitive to your players actual needs, and it is certainly something to discuss in a session zero if these types of charm spells are expected to occur.
Mind control is a very powerful narrative tool. There's a reason why some of the scariest, most iconic D&D monsters have these abilities. But you need to use it sparingly and not always target the same player. I rarely use stunned/paralyzed/unconscious/incapacitated for the same reason - a monster that does that stuff is cool, but it's not very fun for the player.
I have considered just not using this stuff at all, but they do add an impact. They show what the monster is all about. Why it's terrible and must be defeated. There's something insidious and scary about a mind controller. To die with honor is not such a bad death for many PCs. To die after killing your companions - or worse, to survive after doing so - is a fate worse than death. Dominate Person raises the stakes to this level.
I will often show this happening to other people rather than only using it on the party. Fighting a mind-controlled NPC - especially one the party knows well - is its own dramatic scene full of choices. This way you can get at least some of the impact without directly infringing on a player's fun.
Someone used the Command spell on me when I was born. They said "sad", and unlike in the game, for me, the duration is permanent. It's very difficult for me to have anything at all good to say about even the Command spell, and each spell that has more power than that is worse. I've had my "agency" taken away from me, and I know what that feels like. It pretty much works out that at first they tell you what they want to you to feel, then they get to make you like them, they get to order you around, and eventually, they get total control over you. I've never actually known someone who enjoyed any of that. I know that there are people who love that sort of thing. To each their own.
When someone in my games wiggles out in a clever way without (it's probably meta-gaming a little, I don't mind) I give them Inspiration for it.
Other than that, all I'm able to suggest is that it's talked about at session zero, or when it comes up, take a few minutes and discuss it, then move on.
Mind control effects do not take away player agency.
No, I'm sorry... this reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what player agency is. Game mechanics have nothing to do with one's "agency" as a player. If the DM has a monster do enough damage to kill your character, and the character dies, resulting in you not being able to play the character anymore -- this is far more extreme than a few rounds of mind control, but it is not taking away your agency. The rules clearly and unambiguously have provision for characters being hit and taking damage, and for sufficient amounts of damage to kill a character. One's agency as a player is not "you can't kill my character," but rather, the choices one makes that led up to this event. As a player, I chose what class to make my character, an and this affected the armor and weapon proficiencies of the character. I chose what constitution to give the character, and this affected hit points. These choices and many more resulted in me being in the place at the time when I was hit by the killing blow, and that killing blow destroyed the character. But it did not take away my agency.
Mind control is an in-game mechanic, and as a player, one must understand that it can, and I'd say almost certainly will, happen to nearly every character at some point. When it happens, nobody's "agency" is being taken away -- it's an in-game mechanical effect. And we are not free to ignore in game mechanics just because we don't like them -- if we did that, no enemy blade would ever strike home, no dragon's breath would ever roast us, we would succeed at every saving thrown, and all shop owners would just throw items at us for free. It is no more taking agency away from a player to mind control the PC than it is taking agency away to do damage, or put the character to sleep, or hit them with an opportunity attack/sentinel that stops them from moving, and on and on, and on.
Mind control is not about player agency -- it's about character agency. The character's agency can be taken away without anything untoward happening to the player.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
edit: I was just speaking to loss of agency rather than having my agency overridden as with certain charm effects. I don't find Dominate Person problematic in that regard. There is a separation between the caster and me. That said, something like allowing persuasion checks against PCs to convince them to change their minds about something is a no-go. My thoughts are my own, in character or out. They can be influenced magically, and I'll play that out, but that's a matter of being in an altered state, not my regular thought patters. At most, I'd accept persuasion being used the same as deception, which is to say I might be convinced that a character is or is not lying about something.
That was the debate that cropped up in the thread about Beholder's Charm Ray, if you want to check it out.
I realized after that I had answered a different question than was actually asked.
No problem. I encourage a broad discussion straying away from the original question.
To date, I only have three things that are a firm taboo for me at the table and this touches on one of them. The persuasion thing is a fine line about what is or isn't in-bounds. The space in my head—my values, way of thinking, and worldview—has been pretty important to pulling through in my life. I cannot stand being told what I think. I don't want to do that in a game. I'd rather have my character controlled like a puppet.
Yeah, one of the reasons I opened this topic was to get the word out that this stuff can be sensitive to some players, so it's a good thing to bring up in session 0.
Note: Preventing a player from becoming mind controlled, when they already expect it to be a part of the world, is also a form of restricting agency.
The broader topic here might be one of free will and individual responsibility. Who is ultimately responsible for a character/player's experience, the Player, or the DM? Obviously both, which is where the previously mentioned Session Zero comes into play.
Once the DM and Players have come to a common understanding of what the Gaming Experience will be, deviating from that (for better or worse) without reaching a new consensus is the problem, not whatever happens in the game.
Once the DM and Players have come to a common understanding of what the Gaming Experience will be, deviating from that (for better or worse) without reaching a new consensus is the problem, not whatever happens in the game.
With the caveat that if any player is uncomfortable, it's their right to unilaterally leave the game. Whether or not characters have free will, players certainly do, and if the terms the DM and group set out for the campaign are not acceptable to you, you don't have to apologize for leaving.
Mind control effects do not take away player agency.
No, I'm sorry... this reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what player agency is. Game mechanics have nothing to do with one's "agency" as a player.
Nah, the character is the means by which the player effects their agency in the game world. When you remove the ability of the character to act, the player loses some degree of agency in the game world in concert with their character. There are plenty of contexts where this is both normal and fair (if not required for mechanical reasons), but there are also contexts where it's not desirable or potentially inappropriate.
Certainly, there is a difference between using game rules to force a character to act a certain way and putting a gun to a player's head to force them to play their character a certain way. But it's a stretch to try to completely divorce player and character agency.
I agree. There is also a distinction between character unconsciousness and death, which can prevent a character from doing what the player wants them to, and charm-like effects, which can force the character to do things the player doesn't want them to.
Once the DM and Players have come to a common understanding of what the Gaming Experience will be, deviating from that (for better or worse) without reaching a new consensus is the problem, not whatever happens in the game.
With the caveat that if any player is uncomfortable, it's their right to unilaterally leave the game. Whether or not characters have free will, players certainly do, and if the terms the DM and group set out for the campaign are not acceptable to you, you don't have to apologize for leaving.
100%
Safe words and aftercare are an important part of any relationship where comfort zones are tested.
The character is the means by which the player effects their agency in the game world.
Only within the confines of the rules.
Your character cannot do things which the rules do not allow, unless the DM decides to overrule the rulebook. Player agency is not about your ability to affect the game world -- many characters, especially low level ones, may have very little ability to do much of this. Rather, agency is about your ability, as a player, to decide upon what to do with your character within the confines of the rules and the mechanics. If your character is at 0 hp and has to make death saves, you can't affect the world around you either, but this is not taking away agency, because making death saves, and doing nothing else for the round, is what the rules say you are supposed to do under these conditions.
Similarly, if a PC is charmed or mind controlled in some way, the rules explain what these effects are in game terms. A player is not free to reject these effects on the grounds of "player agency." Ignoring a mind control that the rules state should affect your character isn't player agency -- it's cheating. And I submit if one does not want to ever have mind control happen to one's character, one ought not to play most RPGs, because most of them (D&D, Champions, Savage Worlds, Star Trek Adventures) have rules and provisions for mind control of one sort or another, and the player is expected to play along, as part of the collaborative experience of the RP. Invoking player agency to try to avoid a legit instance mind control as applied under RAW is nothing more or less than cheating.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
The character is the means by which the player effects their agency in the game world.
Only within the confines of the rules.
Your character cannot do things which the rules do not allow, unless the DM decides to overrule the rulebook. Player agency is not about your ability to affect the game world -- many characters, especially low level ones, may have very little ability to do much of this. Rather, agency is about your ability, as a player, to decide upon what to do with your character within the confines of the rules and the mechanics. If your character is at 0 hp and has to make death saves, you can't affect the world around you either, but this is not taking away agency, because making death saves, and doing nothing else for the round, is what the rules say you are supposed to do under these conditions.
The question was how one would feel about loss of agency. Loss of the ability to act in game does represent a reduction of agency on the player's part to effect change in the game world. As I stated, there are times that makes sense, and there are times where it is probably not a good idea. But it is a loss of player agency to lose control of their character, even if it's fair, even if it's entirely within the rules.
Similarly, if a PC is charmed or mind controlled in some way, the rules explain what these effects are in game terms. A player is not free to reject these effects on the grounds of "player agency." Ignoring a mind control that the rules state should affect your character isn't player agency -- it's cheating. And I submit if one does not want to ever have mind control happen to one's character, one ought not to play most RPGs, because most of them (D&D, Champions, Savage Worlds, Star Trek Adventures) have rules and provisions for mind control of one sort or another, and the player is expected to play along, as part of the collaborative experience of the RP. Invoking player agency to try to avoid a legit instance mind control as applied under RAW is nothing more or less than cheating.
Is anyone arguing player agency is a valid reason for a player to refuse the effects of a charm spell if they are unable to save against it? The OP didn't strike me as a question on what RAW states. It asked about feelings/ player experience, which is something DMs customarily take into account (though naturally, there are limits as you can't please everyone and not everyone's expectations are reasonable).
Yes. It is within the rules to use monsters with horror themes, but if your players prefer a cute romp through the feywild, maybe don't.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Kind of accidentally started a debate in this thread - Beholder's Charm Ray - but I didn't want to derail the rules lawyering there to talk about the philosophy of the game.
How do you feel, as a player, when in-game effects temporarily deprive you of your agency over your character? I'm talking about effects like Dominate Person, used by NPCs against PCs.
On the one hand, I know it always subjectively sucks when you don't get to play or make decisions temporarily during the game.
However, I think is almost always enhancing to the narrative when it happens. Whenever something unexpected happens, it can shake your party out of their habits and make them think on their feet. And having a member of the party work against the party is quite unexpected. If you can just roll with it, I think you can have a lot of fun.
As a DM, I do recommend you check with players to see if they have any boundaries regarding this. I think for some people feeling loss of agency can be especially acute, or bring up trauma.
I think it sucks, but in the same way taking a hit from a Fire Ball or Great Axe does. It is a possible effect that adventurers may have to face one day.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Spell effects etc can be frustrating but I can deal, they're something I expect to come up. The kind of temp loss of agency that I don't like are things like DM-introduced cut scenes. I guess the more it feels like railroading/disabling cooperative storytelling, the less I like it. Temp spell effects still let you make active decisions, and force you to think about 'what would my PC know versus what I the player know,' and I do like that.
Birgit | Shifter | Sorcerer | Dragonlords
Shayone | Hobgoblin | Sorcerer | Netherdeep
I would hate it for the DM to prevent me playing or making decisions, but I don't think that is necessary. If an NPC casts dominate person on my character and I fail the save when my turn comes I think the DM should just say "Your master tells you to kill the wizard", leaving me the choice on how to do it. It requires a certain amount on maturity on behalf of the player and the party, if I am say a fighter do I use action surge (probably)? If he falls unconcious do I still attack (probably depends on whether the party have the ability to Revify). Why should the DM control my character when I am perfectly capable of controlling it myself.
It has never happened to me with dominate person, it has happened with charm person a couple of times, then I would either try to stop my friends fighting new "other friend" of attack guty guys I don't know that appear to be friends with my "other friend" but ar etrying ot kill my (real) friends, and it has happened with feedlemind where I had great fun fighting with beastial instincts (I was playing a monk so had to decide what features were instinctive and what requires some leel of intelligence to use)
There are so many features that while you are charmed you have extra effects, dominate person is one such, a succubus charm is similar. For this reason when a player is charmed they need ot be told of the full effect and not just say you are charmed.
I do find it frustrating when I get hit with an effect like paralyzed or stunned and can't make the save a couple of times I have gone though a whole battle and all I have done is fail a saving throw at the end of each of my turns (once in particular comes to mind, I only needed something like a natural 9 but I failed all 5 rounds of the battle even with the bard throwing me a couple of inspirations.
Mind control spells are bound to happen. Provided the DM isn't just forcing the issue - i.e. I'm allowed to try to pass the save, and the save DC was set ahead of time with an actual grounding in the rules (unlike many monsters in the MM, who have save DCs that don't match their own statline) - and provided the baddie slinging the effect has a narratively good reason to be in the, well, narrative, then it's completely expected for such things to happen. I'm going to roll my eyes hard if the mind control can't be resisted or if the baddie slinging it has nothing to do with anything else - but that latter bit isn't mind control specific. I'll roll my eyes the same way at any random encounter that serves literally no purpose.
Unless the DM decides to Jaeger the PC, being charmed is no more depriving a player of agency than when they create a personality and actually roleplay it, or find themselves in a dungeon with stone walls. The character temporarily has a different set of priorities and limitations, and can attempt to achieve those priorities as their character would. (D&D is a game. Games have rules. Adhering to those rules is simply part of the process.)
If a character is Dominated and told "Kill your friends", the player still gets a rich experience in which they can explore a side of their character that is normally off limits in a friendly game. A Bard might try to trick their allies with words, while a Barbarian might just go in full tilt. A clever player might pull a "Batman" and know all of their allies' weaknesses.
Now, there are plenty of players who are uncomfortable playing the villain and will metagame their actions to benefit their party, but that's it's own issue.
That was the debate that cropped up in the thread about Beholder's Charm Ray, if you want to check it out.
Dominate Person is objectively horrible. Use in a game/player agency aside, an effect that can force a character to kill themselves or their loved ones or betray the ruler they’ve been loyal to all their lives or reveal the location of the Thing of Ultimate Thinginess their ancestors kept safe for 33 generations or something like that is absolutely, truly, no question about it, soul crushingly horrible. I’m not saying this should never be used by DMs; in fact, I think it’s something DMs should absolutely at least consider using. But even disregarding the issue of player agency, those DM should absolutely also consider the potential impact of what the use of such an ability will have both for positive (drama!) and negative (also drama, just the bad kind).
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
With competent role-players, most charm spells are not an issue. If you can trust the player to role-play the moment accurately, then the player never actually loses agency, its just that their goals in the moment change.
Now, with dominate person, I would, as a DM, never want to use the "you take total and precise control..." portion of the spell, because that does eliminate player agency. Luckily, I trust my players, and would be content with the issuing of commands and letting them figure out how they would fulfill them "to the best of their ability"
Now, if there was a particular player who has IRL issues with agency, that is a different story entirely; of course you should be sensitive to your players actual needs, and it is certainly something to discuss in a session zero if these types of charm spells are expected to occur.
Mind control is a very powerful narrative tool. There's a reason why some of the scariest, most iconic D&D monsters have these abilities. But you need to use it sparingly and not always target the same player. I rarely use stunned/paralyzed/unconscious/incapacitated for the same reason - a monster that does that stuff is cool, but it's not very fun for the player.
I have considered just not using this stuff at all, but they do add an impact. They show what the monster is all about. Why it's terrible and must be defeated. There's something insidious and scary about a mind controller. To die with honor is not such a bad death for many PCs. To die after killing your companions - or worse, to survive after doing so - is a fate worse than death. Dominate Person raises the stakes to this level.
I will often show this happening to other people rather than only using it on the party. Fighting a mind-controlled NPC - especially one the party knows well - is its own dramatic scene full of choices. This way you can get at least some of the impact without directly infringing on a player's fun.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Someone used the Command spell on me when I was born. They said "sad", and unlike in the game, for me, the duration is permanent. It's very difficult for me to have anything at all good to say about even the Command spell, and each spell that has more power than that is worse. I've had my "agency" taken away from me, and I know what that feels like. It pretty much works out that at first they tell you what they want to you to feel, then they get to make you like them, they get to order you around, and eventually, they get total control over you. I've never actually known someone who enjoyed any of that. I know that there are people who love that sort of thing. To each their own.
When someone in my games wiggles out in a clever way without (it's probably meta-gaming a little, I don't mind) I give them Inspiration for it.
Other than that, all I'm able to suggest is that it's talked about at session zero, or when it comes up, take a few minutes and discuss it, then move on.
<Insert clever signature here>
Mind control effects do not take away player agency.
No, I'm sorry... this reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what player agency is. Game mechanics have nothing to do with one's "agency" as a player. If the DM has a monster do enough damage to kill your character, and the character dies, resulting in you not being able to play the character anymore -- this is far more extreme than a few rounds of mind control, but it is not taking away your agency. The rules clearly and unambiguously have provision for characters being hit and taking damage, and for sufficient amounts of damage to kill a character. One's agency as a player is not "you can't kill my character," but rather, the choices one makes that led up to this event. As a player, I chose what class to make my character, an and this affected the armor and weapon proficiencies of the character. I chose what constitution to give the character, and this affected hit points. These choices and many more resulted in me being in the place at the time when I was hit by the killing blow, and that killing blow destroyed the character. But it did not take away my agency.
Mind control is an in-game mechanic, and as a player, one must understand that it can, and I'd say almost certainly will, happen to nearly every character at some point. When it happens, nobody's "agency" is being taken away -- it's an in-game mechanical effect. And we are not free to ignore in game mechanics just because we don't like them -- if we did that, no enemy blade would ever strike home, no dragon's breath would ever roast us, we would succeed at every saving thrown, and all shop owners would just throw items at us for free. It is no more taking agency away from a player to mind control the PC than it is taking agency away to do damage, or put the character to sleep, or hit them with an opportunity attack/sentinel that stops them from moving, and on and on, and on.
Mind control is not about player agency -- it's about character agency. The character's agency can be taken away without anything untoward happening to the player.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
No problem. I encourage a broad discussion straying away from the original question.
Yeah, one of the reasons I opened this topic was to get the word out that this stuff can be sensitive to some players, so it's a good thing to bring up in session 0.
Note: Preventing a player from becoming mind controlled, when they already expect it to be a part of the world, is also a form of restricting agency.
The broader topic here might be one of free will and individual responsibility. Who is ultimately responsible for a character/player's experience, the Player, or the DM? Obviously both, which is where the previously mentioned Session Zero comes into play.
Once the DM and Players have come to a common understanding of what the Gaming Experience will be, deviating from that (for better or worse) without reaching a new consensus is the problem, not whatever happens in the game.
With the caveat that if any player is uncomfortable, it's their right to unilaterally leave the game. Whether or not characters have free will, players certainly do, and if the terms the DM and group set out for the campaign are not acceptable to you, you don't have to apologize for leaving.
I agree. There is also a distinction between character unconsciousness and death, which can prevent a character from doing what the player wants them to, and charm-like effects, which can force the character to do things the player doesn't want them to.
100%
Safe words and aftercare are an important part of any relationship where comfort zones are tested.
Only within the confines of the rules.
Your character cannot do things which the rules do not allow, unless the DM decides to overrule the rulebook. Player agency is not about your ability to affect the game world -- many characters, especially low level ones, may have very little ability to do much of this. Rather, agency is about your ability, as a player, to decide upon what to do with your character within the confines of the rules and the mechanics. If your character is at 0 hp and has to make death saves, you can't affect the world around you either, but this is not taking away agency, because making death saves, and doing nothing else for the round, is what the rules say you are supposed to do under these conditions.
Similarly, if a PC is charmed or mind controlled in some way, the rules explain what these effects are in game terms. A player is not free to reject these effects on the grounds of "player agency." Ignoring a mind control that the rules state should affect your character isn't player agency -- it's cheating. And I submit if one does not want to ever have mind control happen to one's character, one ought not to play most RPGs, because most of them (D&D, Champions, Savage Worlds, Star Trek Adventures) have rules and provisions for mind control of one sort or another, and the player is expected to play along, as part of the collaborative experience of the RP. Invoking player agency to try to avoid a legit instance mind control as applied under RAW is nothing more or less than cheating.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Please listen to BogWitchKris and Geann, even if you disagree with their point of view. It might be the point of view of someone in your game group.
Yes. It is within the rules to use monsters with horror themes, but if your players prefer a cute romp through the feywild, maybe don't.