It absolutely does. We're talking about the agency of a player playing a game. Their ability to play the game well or not is fundamental to that.
Really? So whenever I suck at a game I have no agency? I need to use that excuse when I lose!
If you're viewing agency as binary, I suppose. But I think that's a foolish way to view it. Certainly there are situations where we have more agency than others.
It is a binary. Either you have agency or you don't. If you want to talk more or less agency, then it gets very subjective. What you view is more agency others will view as less and vice versa. Because of that subjectivity, I focus on whether you have it or not.
Agency is my ability as a player to alter the game state to a way I prefer. To evaluate and improve my situation. Blind choices are not an example of agency.
To you. That's your subjective opinion, except for the part where blind choices are not an example of agency. You are just wrong about that one. You still have agency, it's just not enough subjective agency for you and you want more of the kind of agency that you like. There's nothing wrong with wanting more of the kind of agency you like, but telling others that they don't have agency at all in those situations is wrong. Your dislike of the amount of agency you have in those situations doesn't translate into it not being there for either you or others.
You're stuck on this idea that a GM only robs the player of agency if they make the choices for the players, but that's not really what it is. It's about removing the player's ability to make meaningful choices. A choice between door A and door B absent any other information is not a meaningful choice.
The bolded is the problem here. Meaningful is nothing BUT subjective. I find there to be meaning in the blind choice between A and B. You don't. That's fine. The issue is that you are incorrectly trying to say that there is no agency in the latter situation just because you don't find subjective meaning there.
And it doesn't require complete and total information to make allow for some agency. You can just say that "behind door B, you hear the growling of two creatures, uttering in a gutteral tongue that it's been a while since they've gotten to eat adventurers". Now the choice of dor A with no noise, or door B with the hungry monsters is a more meaningful choice.
It doesn't take ANY information to allow for some agency. It's just less meaningful to you than you like. To take agency away from someone to the point where they have none, they need to have no ability to make choices other than those the DM wants them to make.
Well what's Rule Zero? Is it permission to change rules, or is it that the GM has absolute authority? I can never tell, and those things are not the same. There are plenty of games that grant the first without the second.
They are the same, though, when the DM can unilaterally make any change he wants at any time he wants. If the DM doesn't have total authority and/or cannot make any change he wants to the rules, then it's not Rule 0. It's whatever rule the game gives the DM or table to change a rule under limited circumstances.
No business playing in a game? What are you talking about? What if it's their first game with the GM and part of the goal is to build trust? Not everyone plays with the same group they've been playing with for decades. Some people play online or at game stores or conventions; why would they just automatically trust the GM? Why
Because if you don't trust the DM, you should not be playing in that game. You will very often be disruptive to the game, interrupting to ask why something was done or arguing over something. Lack of trust destroys games. When I go into a new game I give the DM trust and it stays there until he shows me that he is not deserving of that trust, upon which time I walk out of the game.
Trust is also granted. If my house is on fire and firemen show up, I'm going to trust that they know what they are doing. I'm not going start questioning them for why they are doing certain things because I don't trust them. They are the experts in fighting fires.
The DM is presumably the expert in running the game, unless I KNOW that he is new. Even if I know the DM is new, I'm not going to distrust him, but I will be on the lookout for possible mistakes and be ready to offer quick friendly advice if it's a major mistake, or friendly advice after the game about what I saw if it wasn't major.
Nothing I can do will hurt the way you play. That seems disingenuous. If you're saying that Rule Zero is somehow fundamental to RPGs then I'd say you're wrong, and would point to the many RPGs that don't have Rule Zero as evidence.
Rule 0 is a cornerstone of traditional play. Rules changes to make the game better has been a large part of the game since its inception.
