Character Agency

What is Character Agency?

Character Agency is a term that gets tossed around a lot by writers of all kinds and a lot of the time the meaning is assumed. This is especially true for writers in RP communities. Of course, your character has agency, they are there talking, aren't they?! Unfortunately, Character Agency is more than just participating in a story.

Character agency is a demonstration of the character’s ability to make decisions and affect the story. This character has motivations all their own. they are active more than reactive. They push on the plot more than the plot pushes on them. Even better, the plot exists as a direct result of the character’s actions.

So what does this mean? Well, I'm sorry Becky, but you sitting there as your father sends you off to be married while the undead plague is spreading and your little brother has gone missing and you just go along with it does not make you a character with Agency. Now, this is not to say that a character that is sent off to be married in an arranged union automatically makes them a character lacking in agency. It is the fact that she just goes along with it even though there's a whole smattering of other bad things happening. Becky never takes action to change what the plot is doing to her life. What if she were to agree to go but only because she knows her groom to be kidnapped her little brother? What if she were to refuse her father and run away with her true love? What if she snuck away at night to try and treat those infected by the plague and carried it back to her town? All of these examples are little tweaks that she as a character can make to the plot of the story. It directly changes what is happening in the eyes of the reader. Even though she is reactive in two of those examples she does so in such a way that she is still making a choice that furthers the plot in her direction.

What are Passive and Active Characters?

The above definition brings a distinct line between Passive and Active characters. These are also terms that are tossed around but more so in the realm of book, movie, and tv writing. We'll get into a few examples below but in a nutshell, all stories have both passive and active characters, and all characters have a mix of active and passive agency.

Passive Characters

Passive characters are like our Becky from above. They are the redshirt guys in Star Trek. The villagers in a town raided by orcs. Sons sent off to war by proud fathers and never doing anything but follow the military rule and maybe they live maybe they don't. Imagine you make a paper boat and set it in a moving river that you have made. You made the boat, carefully picking the paper and making each fold straight and clean. You made the river, the plot, to carry your little boat. And that's it. Your boat gets moved and pushed by the plot and never calls out to shore saying that you should have put a rudder on the thing. Passive characters are directed by the plot and other characters like puppets used to facilitate other, more active characters.

Active Characters

In contrast an Active character is created in the same way and your river is as well. Only this time you add a few sails and a rudder to your little boat and put a consciousness behind the helm. Now the little boat can move. It can make a choice to try and fight the current and go upstream or to make a break for the shore, or avoid that really big rock in the middle. The plot still tosses them around. A bear might come through and try to eat it cause it's easily confused and thinks the little boat is a fish, but now the boat can make a choice to avoid the bear or not. They can still be changed by the plot and other characters but instead of being a puppet the Active Character can act. Hence the name.

How to implement Character Agency into RP

Character Agency is something that all RP characters should have in one form or another. That doesn't mean that they have to be a type A personality or have agency all the time. As said before, there are passive and active characteristics of agency within each character and it is up to us as our character's writers to communicate effectively with the world of our character and bring that agency alive in accordance with their story. Here's where we get into the fun of how to use Character Agency effectively to make excellent stories.

When talking about Agency within a character it is also important to keep in mind The Triangle of Change. This triangle is a tool that can be used to pinpoint the three things that anchor a character in many aspects of a story from redemptive arcs, to character agency, to creating conflict that is focused and not just conflict for giggles.

As Character Building from the Start

When you are looking at a blank character sheet you can find more information then you could probably ever want to put into a single character unless you are a massive nerd like myself. Unfortunately, there's no box or line that prompts you to give your character a level of Agency. It seems to be something that just happens as you create the character in your mind. Give her red hair because that will make her stand out in the crowd but make her shy so she tries to hide it by dying it black. Or maybe she isn't shy and she uses that bright hair to command the attention in the room to speak about her passions without fear. Both of these examples start with the same character building idea but give the personality and soul of the character two levels of agency within their own lives. If you pay attention to how you create a character you can see this play out all over the place. Everything from class and race, to history, personality, style, clothes, mounts, motivations, intelligence and just about everything else.

Giving your character an amount of agency from the start will bring a three-dimensional feel to your character and make it harder for the people participating in their story to see through them to you, the puppet master. Again though this does not mean that you have to have them be a go-getter and world changer from the start if that were the case then we would all live in a world of Godmoders and Metagamers. Giving your character a unique level of agency and a good blend of passive and active traits to facilitate that is what makes an excellent character and you can always change it over time due to a lovely thing called Development.

Interacting with other Characters

Interacting with other players is the whole reason we role play. If we didn't want to do that then we would go write books and have all the characters arguing on our heads where we have to sort them out ourselves. OOCly this brings us a lot of tension, drama, companionship, and personal development through social interaction. Why would it be different for our characters? As your character moves through the world they are in they will have drama, tension, arguments, love, joy, trauma, physical restraints, loss or gaining of faith, addiction, and a whole slew of other things happen to them. These all change and shift how your character views everything in the world around them, including themselves. It's important to take into account how a Passive character might react to an Active one when they meet, and vice-versa.

As Character Development

Now you will have to forgive me for my Game of Thrones reference but despite the train wreck that happened there is still a lot to take away, both good and bad, from the writing of the show when they couldn't lean on GRR any more. In this case, I am going to draw on Sansa Stark as a prime example of character development and growth through Character Agency.

Sansa Stark, in the show, has one of the better character arcs in the series from start to finish. Though not without flaws we can watch her go from being a highly passive to a more active character through her time right up to the point where she becomes Queen in the North. At the start, Sansa is a dreamer, her head away from Winterfell and in some land where she is swept away by a prince charming to be his lady. The one thing at the start that we see her do is to pressure her father into letting her go with Geoffry. Other then this she sits and prays for the gods to do something, believing that knights will save her and that justice will win out at the end. She is as Peter later says-

"You've been a bystander to tragedy since the day they executed your father," he tells Sansa in season five. "There's no justice in the world, not unless we make it. You loved your family, avenge them."

Over time, of course, this changes. We watch her take action in the world around her. This is due to the changes in her views of herself, and the world. In her story, the plot, and the stakes associated with it almost never change, or at least they don't drastically change. Her character agency grows from a place of the plot and more active characters changing her. She stops viewing herself as the perfect little lady and it shifts to her being a stupid little girl who never learns and then transforms into being Lady Stark of Winterfell. Her identity and how she views herself change with the plot and give her more of an active role. In addition her views of the world shift. She sees it as a darker place, one that won't change due to the gods that she no longer trusts. She states that no one can keep her safe because she has seen that to be true and uses that change to give herself more control over her own life. From this new position of agency, she starts to become a player in the game. Changing Peter's story by killing him, taking control of the North by calling the Knights of the Vale to her aid, helping to facilitate the fall of Daenerys by telling Jon's secret to Tyrion, and finally changing the plot of all of Westeros by proclaiming the North independent from the Iron Throne and becoming Queen.

While this is a specific character you can easily see how over her character development she gained character agency and it is a slow and painful process as it changes so much about her character. The same should be true for your characters as well. Be it that they are gaining Agency or losing it. It can build amazing tension and character moments within the greater plot of a story as well as give your character a depth that is unique to them, heightening their story and their ability to interact with other characters.

OOC Interaction

Being in an RP environment is a little different than being a novel writer. You have to consider the people around you OOCly as well as the story being told before you start just taking charge. While most great GM's and the people who facilitate story within these spaces will encourage you to be an active participant not everyone is receptive of that. You may want to approach your Game Master, or officer core about how you can start to give your character agency within the greater plot of the group, or even bring them ideas on how you want your character to become more active if you or your character have been passive in the past. Open up a dialogue with the group as a whole and see what they might be receptive to. It is paramount that you have good communication with the people around you so that no one gets frustrated or the story takes on a turn that no one but you want to see. There's no need for railroading or being nasty OOCly. It is also your duty as a player to help your GM as well as your fellow players in the aspects of Character Agency and how to bring more participation into the group as a whole. By working together you can create in-depth stories that have a life of their own and bring about character development that is real and unique and partly your own.

Finding the Balance

Character Agency is one of the major keys to creating not only a three-dimensional character but one that feels real, passionate, and fun to other players. There's a nuance to adding agency during the creation of a character as well as changing that character over time through good development. There's also a great deal of care to be taken when giving your character agency within a role play space so that the character can facilitate the plot of your group and provide amazing stories. I would encourage everyone to take a look at their characters and see what kind of agency they have if any. If your character was suddenly poofed into a lamp would the story you are a part of suddenly stop or be different? This doesn't mean your character should be front and center all the time but you, as the player, and your character both need to actively participate in the story you are in, else you should go read a book, it's probably less stressful. Probably.

I want to hear your opinions though! Leave a comment and let me know if I missed something, am totally wrong and need to go crawl back to my hole in the ground under a rock, or if this made you think about your character and story in a different way. Let's have a discussion!