In broad terms, a character has agency if they can make informed decisions, and the decisions they make matter to the progression of the campaign. The illusion of agency is when you can make decisions but they aren't informed (going left or right does matter, but you have no way of knowing how) or don't actually matter (e.g. the quantum ogre). Beyond that, it's all a question of degree -- how often can you make decisions, and how wide is the possible range of outcomes.

I never got the impression you were anti-agency at all. Indeed, you made a point of trying to support agency of your players in a way that works for your game.

I did respond to what you wrote, but it wasn't in my mind that you weren't interested in it -- you yourself stated you didn't have a reason to consider it in prep, I responded to that, and you said it really wasn't possible to be fair, so I responded to that. Nothing more than direct responses. 

Notably, I agree with your biases, lol. I, too, have an innate mistrust of Structure -- because it is considered healthy, in part, but also because the examples we have are notoriously fallible and decidedly not fair. However, I do live by a creed that in part includes the statement "Life is not fair, nor is it meant to be; as people, our job is to be fair, and fairness is what we are meant to bring." That, of course, invokes Agency.

There is absolutely a power imbalance at the table sphere you describe -- inherently, and to the same degree that there is a power imbalance between the players in a game of sports and the referee who must cite rules breaking. That Power is wholly on the side of the DM.

This may be seen as a minor quibble; they agree to play D&D, thus they accept that they will play in a world you create and control. That's a valid perspective, but I think there is a way to return some of the power thrust upon us as DMs, and thereby reduce the agency (vernacular) sacrificed by players. You do this by letting them in on the world building process. This also allows them to monitor their own agency (technical) in game; they can tell the "structure" from the "enforcement" because they helped build the structure. This has to be balanced with other design objectives, of course; there's not a lot of tension for a player to crawl through a dungeon they designed, after all. But you can let them design the rumors about the dungeon; you can let them write the legends of the treasure within, and the ancient guardian that protects it. Then you make the dungeon based on what they give you. Maybe you change things up on them; they implied the dungeon had a dragon, but actually it's an immortal knight with dragon heraldry. You have to leave each other gaps like this for collaboration to work.

So, this describes the the formation oof a social contract and then ways of providing player agency through the negotiation of the social contract.

And not too coincidentally matches pretty much what I do when I create a world. Wyrlde is entirely built on suggestions and ideas and requests and even limitations imposed by players during the five yeas I was working on it -- and I have done that in many different ways over the years because it is so much more fun when they realize that yes, there is a character type that allows you to play a living doll, or a magical girl, or a gunslinger. Ithink part of the joy I derive from the worldbuilding act is heightened by the having to find ways to make a cohesive whole out of all of this stuff.

So i think all of that is brilliant, naturally.

Our next thing is pre-planning, though -- and I think that may be where we differ. I don't pre-plan in detail. If you came to me and asked what he names of the villages, the leaders of the cities and towns, what the specific population of certain things is -- I couldn't tell you. I don't world build to that precision of detail. I don't even have maps of my major or minor settlements. That's all stuff I improvise as needed -- it doesn't alter the larger scale world in a direct way, and it enables me to focus on the task of entertaining and refereeing.

I run a sandbox type game -- that means that players can basically do any damn thing they want. I do incorporate stories into the world, including PC stories (and sometimes Romance if they ask -- but I suck at romance and so follow a straight and simple plotline for it). Those stories have a time table, and have an impact ont he setting, and events happen around the players. I also have story hooks and bait for those hooks, and the rumors and gossip and town criers and whatnot that serve to draw them into the stories if they so desire (but with zero requirement).

It usually isn't hard to run -- they want to play and they like stories, and an invitation to meet an old friend of a couple of the party at Nakitomi castle during a christmas celebration is pretty hard to turn down for a bunch of action movie fans.

But sometimes they get a wild hair and start running a whole trading company, or an Inn, or the decide they are angry about some noble who got uppity and needs to be taken down a peg in order to save the people from a cruel and unjust reign -- and I didn't plan a damn thing out about that -- nor do I need to. I can handle all of that through improvisation and shifting around things that were preplanned because of how I did it.

(I have lots of thoughts on the use of "modular scenarios")

And so my preplanning is done to support player agency and also enable the larger scale concept of story and narrative.

As for the rules not supporting any of what you describe, well...

I am still part of the generation of players that grew up with the earliest forms of the game, and it has always been intended to be that way, so to me, the only thing that gets inthe way of doing that is the imagination and creativity of the group. Of course, my solutions may not be popular (what!? You rewrote all the classes to fit your world instead of making the world fit the classes? Blasphemy! Stone her!), but the don't need to be -- they just need to make my table, my players, happy and excited.

And we have changed a lot of things to make us happy -- but it is still D&D and still requires the books. At least to us. And we are people who see how incredibly different 5e is from 1e and say "yeah, they say its the same game, sooo".

So we likely differ there.

I can truthfully and utterly state without equivocation that I have never given inspiration in exchange for a snack. or any other beneficial quirk. My Players have done exactly that (because inspiration is often handled by them), but in 45 years, nope, not once.

Now, back when I was still a child, when dirt was new and grass was a novelty, in the 80's, I did accept bribes of lunch during those 8 hour long sessions, and would usually reward a player with an extra +1 on a weapon or something like that -- the currency is different ;). I concede that yes, I could be bribed early on, lol.

But bribery did fade from our games except as a running joke as we became serious once again in the early 2000's (the 90's were rough) -- though that was as much a function of the growth of the group and the addition of extra DMs, and the way we started to break our play up. Not so much because it wasn't seen as fair (that creed of mine still made it a requirement, so there is always a give and take), but because it wasn't needed. I am never a player, and do not wish to be one; I am only a DM, and I take that responsibility probably way too seriously for my own good.

Quote from Neepers00 >>

I had a discussion recently regarding this, and have played in several campaigns with various DM's who approach this very differently.

We know that railroading happens when the choices that players make have no or little impact on adventure/campaign that they're playing in--they're passengers rather than drivers.

But I've run into some grey areas--and I'm curious what you guys think as agency. I'm a teacher by profession, so 'student agency' is a cornerstone to learning, and naturally I bring that background into D&D for further thought.

Agency in Education
So typically agency means that students have a choice. This choice has parameters, but there are choices within those parameters. "You can read a book or do some free writing." Student feels empowered by that choice. But I call it "Agency Illusion".

Agency illusion
What I'm phrasing as Agency Illusion is where options are provided to you, and you choose one. There is a feeling of agency, but the choices are mandatory. "This or that"--in reality a choice is being forced upon you without the person perceiving that they're being forced into a decision. This is also a great parenting strategy. 

D&D Agency Illusion
I have yet to play in what I consider a 'true agency' campaign, but I haven't been a lifetime player--so maybe some of you have. Wondering what you think.
I'm in a campaign where at the end of the session the DM goes "Ok, where do you want to go to next?" then we say "here" and then he preps for that. We can't do anything except for where we said we'd go however. So is that agency?

I feel like it's a bit railroady, but I can't quite identify why. In the end we're all having a good time--that's the point, but from a meta-play aspect, it feels like superficial agency: agency illusion.

True Agency
Wondering if any of you have had this experience, or whether this is too idealistic. True agency would be that you have a campaign map/area, and players go and do whatever the heck they want, anywhere they want. To make this happen a DM would need to prepare every single major location, city, cave, battlemap ahead of time with loot, quests, material--so that if a player wanted to say "I'm going this town" "I want to visit this ruin" or "Let's go explore the woods!"--there's always something. This would be a massive front-loaded preparation. Does anyone do this? (to be fair, that's exactly what a module does right?)

Ideally I would want a player to be able to go anywhere, do anything--and while that would require a ton of pre-prep, after that prep, session prep would be virtually nil (only need to prep on how they impacted the world).

Ultimately for me, agency means being given no choices at all--the players make the choices rather than select choices they're given.

Thoughts?

 

I haven't read the rest of the thread so there may be comments similar to mine.

1) True Agency starts with the choice to play the game in the first place. By choosing to play the game, the player is already agreeing to follow the "rules" of the fantasy world that the character is in. They have already agreed to a DM and player covenant of one sort or another. Session 0 is often a good opportunity to define what limits the player agency when role playing their characters.

For example:

- can players introduce technology? Gunpowder? Other elements that don't naturally exist in the game world and of which their characters might be unaware but which the player might think are cool. Is that player agency being limited by the implicit agreement to abide by the explicit and implicit rules of the game world.

- meta gaming. How much player knowledge can go into making character decisions? Does that impact player agency? Can a player, knowing that a glyph won't work if moved 10', always role play their character picking up books and moving them at least 10' before opening them? Does telling the player that they can't do that impact "player agency".

- before talking about "true agency", you need to define exactly what that means in the context of a specific game.

2) Does True Agency allow the players/characters to do whatever they like? Are they constrained in any way by role playing their character? Can they use the "excuse" that their "agency" is justified by "That is what my character would do"? How does the world respond to egregious applications of player "agency"?

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Answering the above two questions leads to the conclusion that deciding to play has already given up a significant amount of "True Agency" by deciding that you want to play a social game with a group of other individuals each playing their own character.

3) If "agency" means allowing the players to go where they want and do what they want (within reason and the context of role playing their characters within the defined game world) and when they want .. then sure I have run games like that ... and played in them.

However, it is important to keep in mind that the vast majority of a world at any given time is not interesting. The game world is generally populated by NPCs doing their normal every day things - harvesting resources, making or building things, working at a wide variety of tasks - a small fraction of people are guards or work in the military, an even smaller fraction are typically adventurers. If the party decides to not take a job then some other adventuring group (if available) might decide to take care of it.

Having the party use their "agency" to go "somewhere" may very well result in the party not finding anything of interest. That is the reality of any world, let alone a game world. Traveling around visiting new villages, trying new foods, enjoying the travel is fun for us but makes a very unexciting role playing experience (I'm speaking from experience here - I once played in a game where the characters were members of the guard for the local lord, little or no magic, we spent much of four sessions sitting around the barracks, walking around town doing nothing, and trying to catch some poachers - medieval real life role playing is mostly boredom - campaign ended at that point).

Most D&D skips the boring bits with characters following up on the rumors that they happen to hear about but they hear these not because the DM is "railroading" or "limiting player agency" but simply because those are the exciting things that are happening that the NPCs in the game world are discussing. Players can choose to go anywhere they like but it doesn't mean that they will find anything interesting there - they might or they might not.

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Finally, running a game where the players can go where they like, when they like, and do whatever they like, can't be handled via preparation since the preparation becomes effectively infinite. Instead, the DM needs a template for their world. Regions, cities, towns, some idea of the economy, factions, local rulers and most important the plot lines and events that are generally shaping the current days within the game world. Based on that framework, the DM then improvises what happens in response to each group decision, what they see, what they find, what NPCs are present, how the NPCs react etc ... if the DM has a solid framework and template then it is relatively easy for the DM to improvise the encounters/NPCs and interactions that result from player decisions. However, it is very important for the DM to write these elements down after the session in order to maintain continuity. Those NPCs and details are important elements that may contribute to future narratives and important details can't be lost since they may well contribute to future interactions.

... that is about it - allowing for players to have as much agency as possible within the explicit and implicit constraints of the game world requires the DM to have a framework/template and know the important events that are going on in the game world so that they can improvise reasonable interactions with these stories no matter where the players choose to go ... keeping in mind that the most common finding of choosing a random place to go might often be just a normal everyday visit with some folks doing normal everyday activities.

There's no account of agency that isn't also an account of intent, and I'm not convinced that an open world is the same thing as unlimited agency. I also think it will be impossible to talk about agency without reckoning with the inherently authoritarian structure that makes some players' choices contingent on other players' choices. For my money, the good news is that when it works right D&D can be a fantastic way to tell a story in which everyone collaborates.

Agency is well and good. Probably it is the ultimate goal of the game. I'd call it the chance to take meaningful actions, and without talking about intent, there's nothing meaningful which can happen. When I set out to play D&D, I'm interested in a narratologically consistent experience which addresses character motivation and which has some grandness in scope. I wouldn't say that a save-the-world story is indispensable; one of my favorite's is the very personal story told in Planescape: Torment, yet that was one which dwelt on themes of mortality, and that's one way to do a grander scope. I submit that an open world does not immediately produce agency for me because while my choices aren't constrained, they also aren't meaningful. I think agency happens when PCs have a stake in the story going one way or another, and when they have choices which will alter outcomes. I recognize that's a high bar to set. Still, as the OP points out, there's a lot of ways you can offer false choices that don't affect outcomes, and it would be wrong to call that agency.

I don't think unlimited agency is desirable. Unlimited agency is that experience of looking at a blank piece of paper and wondering what it could become, yet as soon as some lines are written or drawn agency has started to take on limits, and that's the only way to finish the piece. There's something to be said for the power of in potentia. On the other hand, I don't know if anyone would be interested in the sit-in-a-circle-and-meditate-on-limitless-possibility game. I further submit that the story which doesn't end isn't yet a story. That was a long way of saying that it takes consistent, narrative limits to tell a good story, and that the agency I am looking for is the one which puts my character into difficult situations because it's only when they have to choose between betraying friends and pursuing nobler intentions that the choice takes on meaningfulness.

Likewise, it's only when players have the capacity to subvert the DM's expectations that they can be said to be affecting the course of the story. Structurally, there's a bit of an issue when it comes to agency in D&D. The game is organized so that one player--the DM--has a lot more control than other players. I'm trying to choose words carefully here, because the control that DMs have is rarely any more like agency than the lack of control PCs have. Because DMs have so much control over the challenges that the game presents it's easy to mistake that control for meaningful choice. It isn't, and in fact what the DM has to do in order to create agency is to give up control. For my money, that's done through narratological consistency. The best thing a DM can do is create expectations which PCs can trust to be consistent, because agency is all about having the ability to make a meaningful change, and that only happens within a narrative.

Let me try to offer an example from a game I recently ran. Long story short, there was an evil wizard. I spent early parts of the game establishing the evilness of the wizard and some antagonisms he had with other wizards. I also developed an NPC who was the daughter of a group of barbarians enslaved by said wizard. At one point, the PCs rescued this NPC, and they had to make good their escape. This was a moment when my expectations were subverted, because they chose the most dangerous of routes in order to get away. I'd say the group had agency because the choice of going by underground paths full of undead giants aligned with the interests expressed in one character's backstory, and because the choice was one which the characters debated in their own voices, and because the choice was taken in order to return to a place of safety from another character's backstory. Then, later in the same game, the party was at a level appropriate for a final confrontation, and when I introduced the NPC's desire to return home, my expectations were fulfilled because it would not have been meaningful for the PCs to decide at that point that they didn't care about the evil wizard they'd opposed for so long.

True agency is not unlimited choice, because unlimited choice includes both meaningful choices and meaningless choices. This is a problem that open world games have in general, and it's one I wish they'd do more to address. True agency is when your choices are limited by motivations appropriate to your character and by options available to your character. It's an art to ensure that the available options can contribute meaningfully--and that sword swings both to PCs and DMs. The PC who irrationally wants to fight a Balor at level 1 is making a meaningless choice just as much as the DM who inflicts a Balor on the party at level 1. Story happens when both DM and PCs recognize that an early game Balor is an enticement to a race for survival.