But you do. Because everything you say here relies on your Newspeak definition of agency.
Oddly, it's only you that says this.
Yes it does. They're establishing things about the fiction. Earlier several people claimed that player's agency was limited if they were not allowed to introduce some hills in the fiction. So certainly introducing elements in fiction is use of agency. Everything the characters feel, think or say, is an element in the fiction. And just like the hills, it can affect the behaviour of the other characters too.
The element introduced is that some characters talked, so, yes, I suppose having the agency to do this is something. But, you don't actually have this agency -- the GM in your game is allowing it to happen, the players cannot decide this is so themselves and enforce it. If the GM wished, your discussion could have been interrupted by any manner of things, so it's not really a choice you've made that creates this, it's a choice the GM has made to allow it. As a player, you do not have the agency to execute a talk. The actual contents of the talk is about as important as the color of your cloak -- until the GM determines that what you're discussing is important, it is not.
This is what you have when you have a system where the GM has complete authority over the setting and resolutions. It's not a bad thing -- most GMs are going to not even consider interrupting player discussions in character because they enjoy them as well. This is just a usual exercise of the agency the GM possesses, though, not an exercise of player agency. I think that this is what you're confusing -- how a GM usually rules for allowance for the player being able to enact a thing.
Presumably what happens in a meeting is people talking. Which is a thing that happens. You're trying to slip in here one of your arbitrary imaginary divisions.
A thing happening is not sufficient for an exercise of agency. Again, if you have a choice between right or left, but no nothing about the choice other than it's a or b, and you choose one, you're not actually exercising agency because the choice is empty. Similarly, a thing happening isn't a sufficient condition for agency. For example, a player can ask a GM for there to be a friendly barman to ask for a drink at the local pub instead of the usual surly barman. The GM can acquiesce, and add one. This isn't an exercise in player agency, though, but an exercise of GM agency.
So now the ability for the players to do what they want without GM stopping them is them having agency... except if what they wanted to do was to talk, then it wasn't...
If this is the conclusion you reached from that, you've understood the exact opposite of what I said. What I said was that talking in character doesn't enable or disable agency -- there must be something more.
In-character play is a part of the game, thus making decisions about that is making decisions about the content of the game, thus use of agency.
Of course in-character play
can be part of the game. It doesn't have to be, but it most certainly can be. And, I 100% agree that the player choosing whether or not to act in character is an exercise of agency -- they don't have to and it can be a meaningful choice. Just not a meaningful choice for the RPG, and not an exercise of player agency within the game. Why? Because acting in-character is not a requirement for the game -- agency exists in the game whether or not you're acting in character. You can act in character and have the same agency in the game as another player that does not. No, instead, you're exercising your real world agency to choose to act in character, and the repercussions are in the social interactions with your table, and in the meta-game layer that sits above the game being played. The role playing in RPG doesn't mean acting in character, it means taking on a role like Fighter or Wizard. You don't have to act in-character at all to do this.
Again, my preference is definitely for in-character acting. I enjoy it and prefer it. I just don't confuse it for player agency.
Once more we find that I'm advocating for the same kinds of play you are, but there's violent disagreement because I note how the game is working and you want what you prefer to be what the discussion is about.
Yes! They absolutely do! If they cannot do that, their agency is seriously limited and it is completely bonkers to claim otherwise!
Okay, let's be clear, you're saying that if a player cannot first introduce the existence of a trap on a door and then introduce that they've disarmed it that they lack agency? This is the analogue to the situation being discussed -- the player has introduced a "trap" of having conflicting motivations and then introduced their "disarming" of the "trap" by just saying that they successfully navigated it. The only difference here is that the trap example is physical and the temptation of Lancelot isn't, but that's a completely false difference in an imagined space. You're now saying that agency exists when players can invent obstacles and then narrate how they bypass them. This isn't agency, it's not even engaging agency. I can't say this is high or low or no agency because it's not even touching the concept -- it's pure authorship.
Yeah, I'm done with this Czege. It is invoked here like some religious doctrine, and with similar amount of subtlety too.
It's not a religious doctrine at all -- no one worships it, any more than "don't be a dick" is a religious doctrine. It's a clear statement that if one person is both the author of an obstacle and also the author of how that obstacle is defeated, there's no game there. It's referenced because it's an easy shorthand for a trivial truth. One I find it odd that you're dismissing given how you also dislike the idea of a player being able to introduce hills north of the swamp.
Here's a clear example you have experience with -- railroads are good examples of a Czege Principle violation. The GM has authored the obstacles and also the only solution to them. If you do not follow the GM's solution plan, you get noped until you do. This is, almost universally, acclaimed to be unfun. Viola, Czege Principle. You can't both introduce a problem and then solve it -- it's not that fun.
And this is not some pass/fail test, it is a choice. And important, character defining choice. The character is basically choosing to sacrifice one thing that is important to them, they cannot have both.
No, not in the situation I've presented. The player isn't abandoning the character's forbidden love of the Queen in favor of loyalty to his friend, they're making a decision as to which they want right now. Let's say that the player is doing so because it's materially advantageous to do so -- if they don't bed the Queen right now, which will destroy their friendship but satisfy their love of the Queen, then their friend the King will grant them lands and wealth and a new suit of armor that will improve the PC's AC and let them buy that magic sword they've had their eye on. Besides, they can always go back to the Queen next session if they want. Nothing is resolved, the player just picks because this session it's better for them this way than that. This isn't a character defining moment unless the player decides it is, which is, again, them introducing the problem and then deciding how it works out.
Unless the GM later leans on this somehow, this is the equivalent of picking the color of your cloak -- it's pantomime, not actually making character defining choices.
This is truly something. You advocate subjecting important character defining choices for die rolls and think you're advocating for agency!
I'm sorry, do you not roll dice to see if characters die in combat? Is that not character defining, in the ultimate way? Does this mean that there's no agency in combat?
Answers are, of course, Yes, absolutely, and of course there is, in that order. The presence of dice doesn't remove choice. The player has chosen these conflicting motivations themselves and put them out in a place where they will be challenged. We don't allow players to place a troll guarding a treasure and then say they defeat the troll, roll up the treasure, do we? No, and there's no actual difference between inventing a troll that you then say you defeat than there is to inventing a character dilemma that you then say how you've solved. These don't involve player agency because they're not part of playing the game -- if they occur, it's just the fun story we tell around the game, particularly the bits that don't matter except to be entertaining.
Very early in this thread I talked about not sweating about agency regarding small choices, whether to go to right or left, etc. I said that it is the big choices that matter, love, loyalty, grand goals. This is that sort of a choice. Now having GM to force such choices is of course a no go, but reducing such to some soulless coin flips is almost as bad. So yeah, I'll stick to my version of agency, which means that the players get to control the crucial decision that define their characters.
I absolutely agree that your version means that players control their characters. And, this is fine and good. One of my tenets I stick to when I run 5e (which I believe I've mentioned) is that player authority over their characters is absolute (aside from those Charm effects, of course, but I actually strive to avoid those at most costs). So, I don't disagree that this is the way that D&D generally plays. But, if a player has that complete control, then it's not agency at stake when they exercise it. Agency requires a choice that matters, one that has teeth, one that risks things, and players don't risk when they make these choices with total control. To be absolutely clear, the player's choice on these things doesn't engage agency because there's no teeth to that choice. Now, downstream, the player might declare actions in pursuit of that choice, and those can engage agency. Just like the players can discuss in-character all they want and that doesn't engage agency until they start declaring actions in the game. You're confusing the ability to choose to do something at the "inside my head" or "play-acting with my friends" level and missing that the discussion isn't about that -- it's about how the game operates. Those are grafted on top of the game -- they're not necessary for the game to function -- so they can't be exercises of agency in the game by players. They're actually part of the meta-game level -- the one you play where the reward is to entertain yourself and your friends.
And, if you doubt this, you can absolutely find the passage in the rulebook that says that what you claim is an essential part of the game. You'll find discussion about how it can be fun to do so, but no rule in the game requires that you do and the game plays just fine without it. Not a game I'd particularly enjoy, but one that works just fine. And, my enjoyment and what I like has absolutely no bearing on my analysis of agency.
