[This was written in response to a Reddit post which claimed the following:
Some examples of what is versus what isn't player agency:
What is good player agency:
Rogue: "I check the chest for traps."
DM: Okay, how are you inspecting it?
Rogue: "I'm gently running my dagger along it, feeling for anything out of the ordinary."
DM: Okay, roll an Investigation check.
Rogue: "20."
DM: "Yeah, you find the poison gas trap hidden on the chest."
Rogue: "Okay, I want to disarm the trap."
DM: Roll a Thieves' Tools check.
Rogue: "15."
DM: "You were unable to disarm the trap."
Rogue: "Okay, but I still want to open the chest."
DM: "You want to open the chest, knowing full well there's a trap?"
Rogue: "Yes."
DM: "Okay, roll a CON saving throw."
What is not good player agency:
Rogue: "I want to check the chest for traps."
DM: "As you approach the chest, it shoots out deadly poisonous gas and you breathe it in and immediately fall to the ground, gasping for air as you take your final breath and pass into the afterlife."
Rogue: "What the [deleted]"
Notice how for the second example, the Rogue didn't get to control their character at all. The DM didn't ask how they were doing what they were doing, the Rogue didn't get to make a single skill check or play the game. They were simply a character in the DM's story that they wanted dead. No saves, no checks, no damage rolled. Simply dead.
My response below. -Max]
While the example isn't terrible, I think the OP does not fully articulate why the interaction is unsatisfying. Here's a definition:
Player Agency (n.): "the feeling of empowerment that comes from being able to take actions in the [virtual] world whose effects relate to the player's intention" -Mateas, 2001
"Agency is an experiential pleasure. As such, it can fade in and out; it can fail altogether. Agency is not automatic, and so simulated environments should be cleverly constructed to help users/players get there." - Steven Dow (2009)
The reason the instant-kill example is so unsatisfying is not because the player doesn't get to roll enough dice, it's because based on the information given, the outcome feels arbitrary and the player feels helpless, as if his decisions didn't matter.
How could you transform example #2 so players gain the feeling of agency? Different methods lead to different feels for your campaign. The OP suggests a skill-centric approach where the DM is careful to make the player's investments in Investigation and Thieves Tool skills matter, as well as investments in feats like Resilient (Con) and Tough. The damage would presumably be carefully-calibrated to not actually kill a high-Con Barbarian (e.g. 5d8 damage, not 20d20), because the OP is clearly trying to highlight a game where resources and build choices matter, so survival-via-sufficient-HP instead of survival-via-Thieves-Tool-Expertise will be a viable strategy.
Another way to build a high-agency campaign is by giving the players lots of information: hints and foreshadowing. Imagine that the players have encountered many corpses of other adventurers who died clutching their throats in front of chests, and maybe solved a riddle or two hinting at how in this place, breath is death, and that only the Necklace of Amun-Ra (which is a Necklace of Adaptation that prevents you from having to breathe) can save you. If the players choose not to enter the Tomb of Amun-Ra to retrieve the necklace but instead try to immediately open up the treasure chest they find outside the Tomb... then when someone dies to the poison gas, that will not feel arbitrary and the player should not feel helpless, even if the poison damage was great enough to kill a medium-sizeed dragon (20d20, DC 22, save for half). The death was clearly a result of the players' decision to be impatient, and the results of being impatient were plausible: increased danger. In a campaign like this one, build choices matter less, and an impatient or foolish player's PC will probably die relatively soon even if he has 18s in every stat, whereas a savvy player's PC might make it all the way to 20th level even with no initial stat higher than 14.
It's important to note that in order for the prior scenario to feel high-agency, the DM has to react appropriately when the PCs go off-script and do something creative. If instead of trying to pick the lock, the PCs try to cut a hole in the chest with an axe, does the DM say "No, you can't" to force them back to the original dilemma? Or does something logical happen: either the trap goes off anyway, or they accidentally ruin some of the treasure inside the chest? Their ability to go off-script (with appropriate consequences) will influence feelings of player agency, even when they choose to stay on-script.
Yet another way to provide agency would be to make moral choices matter: do you risk opening the chest yourself, or do you animate a zombie and make the zombie do it for you? Or make a prisoner of war do it? When you need information that could greatly decrease the risk of danger to you in your treasure-hunting, how far are you willing to go to get it?
Agency is an experiential pleasure, and a given DM has to think carefully about the ways in which he is prepared to offer agency to those players.
More here:
http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2013/10/on-theory-defined-player-agency.html
I could not love thee dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more.
