This was heading into the neighbourhood of Auxol, and so Thurgon kept his eye out for friends and family.
Ok, peace by peace, using your exact quotes: the player wishes to 'just' find a family member right where the character is. This is the 'request'.
The Circles check (base 3 dice +1 for an Affiliation with the nobility and another +1 for an Affiliation with his family) succeeded again,
Player makes a check and succeeds.
and the two characters came upon Thurgon's older brother Rufus driving a horse and cart. (Thurgon has a Rationship with his mother Xanthippe but no other family members; hence the Circles check to meet his brother.)
GM does what the player requested. In this case alters reality to say "yup your brother is right there" when the player asked for a family member to be there.
In your D&D games, are there ever combats? Which have the familiar structure
1. Player wishes monster dead
2. Player makes check
3. DM says "oh, the monster's dead"
Well....that is not how combat in D&D works as it's not that simple. It's quite rare for any combat in D&D to end with one roll in one round...but it could happen. But there is a whole chapter on combat and all sorts of combat rules. It's not just One Roll to Win.
In high player agency RPGing, the mechanics give the players the capacity to shape bits of the fiction other than simply whether or not monsters are dead. This is one reason why, in post 211, I said that
But your example of 'shaping the fiction' is just telling the GM to do what you want.
And I say...well if the player can 'shape the fiction' then why can't they just 'shape' it and say 'wish for a pile of gold'. Then, you say, oh the players can only shape teeny tiny little bits of the fiction once in a while. And still has to make a check to do anything. So...this goes right back to sounding like no agency.
I mean during play. Not jokes and songs or detailed backstories.
Have any of your players contributed meaningfully during play?
Guess this depends what your asking?
Like I just ran (three) dragon slaying adventures....and when the players characters killed the dragon I count that as "a contribution''.
If your asking do I ever have a player say "I wish my character could find a treasure chest under the nearby oak tree with a billion gold coins" Then I say "oh, under the nearby oak tree you find a treasure chest with a billion gold coins!" Then, no, that never happens in my game.
No one’s advocating for this. You’re clearly missing something, and I expect you realize that. So why not ask questions or try to get clarification instead of trying to caricaturize a style of play that’s not familiar to you?
The example given, at it's basic was:
1.Player makes a 'request'
2.Player makes a successful rules check
3GM does whatever the player requested
So what am I missing?