EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Has that been suggested? To be clear, I am understanding your question here as, "Why has it been suggested that D&D players have less agency because they cannot <make fiat declarations of benefit>?!"
And I am not saying that. Instead, what I have seen (repeatedly) is that D&D is claimed to be superior because it, unlike these badwrongfun storytelling games, just doesn't let players make fiat declarations of benefit. (Switching to "benefit" to avoid confusion with the 5e Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic.) Further, D&D does so specifically by having a central DM authority that can shut down such horrible things, a measure which cannot be avoided if one wishes to solve this problem.
That is, the assertion across this thread has pretty clearly been, "Games using stuff like PbtA let players make fiat declarations of benefit, which is absolutely unacceptable. We cannot allow in things like what PbtA does without also allowing in that absolutely unacceptable thing." Hence why I have said, repeatedly, that that both does not and in fact cannot happen in any of these games I've played, at least if you are playing by the rules and with appropriate decorum (meaning, non-degenerate playstyle). The criticism of "storytelling" games falls flat because it is, quite simply, not real.
Above, Spout Lore was explicitly cited by someone (maybe Oofta?) as being an example of "remembering" the world into a totally new state with new features and benefits--and thus my example was meant to show that there is no such "remembering" in that move. The most a player can do is tell me how they learned the information that I, the GM, gave them, which will almost certainly involve something like the school where the PC was taught, a specific book the PC read, or a specific situation from the character's life--all of which are perfectly valid things for players to invent when writing character backstory, even in D&D.
This is good and useful! So, Fate certainly treads closer to the line in the sand, but as you say, there's still a requirement the player must have first: an Aspect that permits such a declaration. In the context of my random example, a hostel in the middle of nowhere, would something like...
Aspect: Mendicant Friar
Effect: Spend a fate point to reveal resources you can draw upon as a member of your monastic order, so long as you are in a place where that order holds sway.
There seems to be some potential for rolls or the like relating to Aspects, so there could even be a roll involved in some way, but I don't know enough about the Fate system to really say more. (Just did a quick glance at the Fate SRD website, so hopefully the above isn't terribly wrong!)
Seriously: Who? I for one have claimed that someone using their decades-old lorebook to shut down things the players attempt is pretty clearly a problem for player agency (as it rigidly fixes a great deal of the world to something totally external to actual play). And I have certainly claimed here or at least elsewhere that railroading, illusionism, and other "viking hat DM" approaches are pretty corrosive to player agency. But I have not claimed that players just always have "no real agency" in D&D--nor have I seen anyone else do so.
Character creation. Character advancement. Strategic coordination in combat. Several forms of interacting with the skill and/or saving throw system. E.g., the player choosing to fail a save against an illusion because they think it would be more interesting for the character to believe the illusion is real. Backstory writing, as noted previously. Emotional responses to events--it is the player who decides whether Gonad the Barbarian feels sick relief that his ex-lover survived a perilous fall, or burning resentment. (I don't know about you, but IRL, I have little choice in a lot of my emotional responses to things, the only choice I have is how to act on those emotions.) In 5e specifically, things like applying Inspiration, or invoking certain class features (e.g. Fighter's Action Surge/Second Wind/Indomitable, Barbarian's Relentless Rage, Rogue's Stroke of Luck). These things fail to map to character choices, and yet they are often pretty important tools in the players' hands.
