D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Maxperson]

It did not read so to me, and I did not give any analysis as though it were, so the point is moot, if you were replying to me about it. I don't consider either chess or go to have more or less agency than the other, because both of them are ultimately very constrained in terms of actions players can take. They just have high game complexity (with go being, as stated, provably much more complex--fifty orders of magnitude or more.)

If 1 action(put a piece down on the board) is the same as 18(move 16 different pieces, plus castling, en passant) actions with regard to agency, how do you justify one RPG style giving more agency than another due to the number of actions(options) they give?

Yes, it absolutely was. The whole point of counting events is that they can be discussed. You are literally saying they can't be counted, that the numbers are meaningless. Either the count is a count, or it is not.

It is a count. It's an agency count of 20 for you and an agency count of 8 for me, even though we each had the same 20 actions. A count is a count and we can measure agency for both of us. Now what does comparing 8 to 20 actually mean? Not a whole heck of a lot.

Sure there is. At least one of them is wrong. Either there was agency or there wasn't. That's your binary. Either it's present, or it's not. Either the count-er is right about their count, or they are not. Your subjective interpretation that you felt agentful is irrelevant. Did you have control and/or influence over the event, or not? If yes, it goes in the yes column. If no, it goes in the no column. Two people can disagree about any given event; one of them will be right, and the other will be wrong. False positive or false negative depends on the actual instance.

You were going really well until the bolded. Both are in fact correct. If the event doesn't mean anything to me, I have agency during that event, even if it does mean something to you and you have agency. To have agency the choices have to mean something. Maybe having the choice to twiddle your thumbs or not and piss off the BBEG gives you agency, but it doesn't give it to me.

It's that simple.

It's not. Meaning has to be there as well for there to be agency.

Then you are simply wrong. Authors have a form of agency--control and/or influence--over their work that no human being could ever have over their actual, lived life. Those are distinct forms of agency. Period.

Authors are literally railroading everything in their books. It goes exactly how they say it does.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think when folks look at things like flashbacks in Blades or Circles checks in Burning Wheel there is a tendency to react to them as if they were just inserted into the framework of a D&D game. The way Blades handles inventory management and flashbacks is done explicitly because we are skipping straight from, we're doing x to we're doing x. That week + of planning and preparation is being elided to keep the game moving. We're not actively making changes or altering anything. We're defining something left undefined. In the case of flashbacks, it's also almost always done with some risk to make things actively worse.

I would not advocate adding these sorts of mechanics into a game with GM defined backstory, but I think it's important to acknowledge the actual context behind what is happening. Something that has yet to be defined is being defined. We're not engaging in retroactive editing.

This is also not an essential feature of Story Now play. It's not part of Apocalypse World or Sorcerer. What is however shared is that the only constraining fictional elements are those that are seen actively on screen or have been shared beforehand. The GM is not a world builder. They are scene framers and are obliged to frame scenes that are relevant to the characters' and game's premise.

Fundamentally it's that obligation where agency comes from in any roleplaying game. In challenge-oriented play the GM is obliged by fictional positioning, game mechanics and preparation to grant players the victories they earn. In Story Now play the GM is obliged by the resolution mechanics, details of the shared fiction, enumerated principles and scene framing responsibilities to let events snowball. In more simulation oriented play the GM is obliged by their prep to make rulings based only on fictional details.

Without such obligations there can be no agency because there can be no assurance that any player's contributions will have an actual impact on the proceedings.

The fact that the DM is not a worldbuilder and is instead obligated to frame scenes the way the game demands is why I don't want to ever run such a game. Doesn't mean anything by itself regarding agency.

 

[bloodtide]

So here, from a rulebook published 3 years after D&D was first published, we see a contradiction of your claim about "the basic foundation of RPGs in general".

Maybe the words don't display right on my screen: All I'm seeing is "here are some SUPER vague rules" and "it's the GM job to make the call on things". What do you see?

I have not talked about any RPG that fits what you describe here.

Ok, again well will say "You say you have never talked about any RPG", as you must always bring that up.

But.....ok, you might notice this is a direct quite FROM YOU. You Typed it and you posted it. Here, I will post it, again:

If the impact of what the player decides that their PC says and does is decided primarily by the GM, then this does not seem to me to be a very significant exercise of agency by the player. They are prompting the GM to produce an effect or result; but they are not producing it directly via their own agency.​

So...ok, we have established you are not talking about an "RPG". But your talking about something, right? Well, THAT is what I'm replying too.

I've just stated a perfectly functional RPG rule, that supports high agency play. It does not depend on any so-called "alter reality" ability. It does require the GM to have regard to player goals for their PCs in adjudication.

A "perfect" rule....not one from any RPG though...right? Just more a vague rule idea you thought of?

But, ok, to YET AGAIN, respond to what you typed. So the GM must "have regard for the players goals for their PC"? Well, my first reaction is there ANYTHING of the DMs that the player must "have regard for the DMs goals for the game?". If not why not? Why does the player get to have the GM give them "special regard".....and YET the player does not have to return that to the GM? Why would you support game play with such lopsided power?

And this STILL, circles back to my original question: So how does this work if the GM and player are not so perfectly in sync with each other that they always think and say the same things?

I've provided abstract descriptions of various high-agency RPG systems, as well as examples of actual play. Have you read any of them?

I did. I guess you want me to go back and find them and take them apart piece by piece before you will give an answer?

Suppose, as a player, your goal in play is to learn what another person is imagining. In that case, you will not want to exercise agency over the content of what they imagine.

So, I guess here you are talking about a player, in character, learning what another player is imagining about their player. So player A can't tell Player B what Character B is thinking.

Ok, sounds good.

But you WOULD say that Player A can do that for any and every NPC.....right? So this bring back my question of why even have a GM in the game is the players will just "exercise agency over the content"?

An analogue might be a gift: if I would love to receive a gift that reflects someone else's conception of what they would like to gift me, then I don't want to exercise agency over their choice of gift for me. Rather, I want to be surprised and delighted by their choice!

Right...this is how normal people expect to get gifts: and have it be a surprise.

Though for the Player Demanding Agency....they are THIS type of person: "Here is my Offical Only Things You May Buy ME for MY Birthday List. Please select the item you WILL buy for me and cross it off the list. "

It seems pretty plain to me that a lot of RPGers want to learn what another person is imagining. This is often described using the language of "discovery" or "exploration*. I don't see what benefit flows from describing this in distorting language as the one who is learning also being in control.

I guess your only talking about the GM here? The game only has two types: the player(s) and the GM. Someone has to be in control. Some one has to be in the divers seat.

There are VERY few examples in all of RPGing of games which allow players to 'just invent something' in anything like the way that was suggested in MULTIPLE posts in just this thread

If a player can not "just invent" something....then they will always have zero agency though......right?

I'd guess you would exclude backgrounds from this statement though, right? Or are backgrounds "ok" as they get GM approval?

(Sigh, for those reading who need it the following example is generic and not from any offical published RPG)
But...as has been said....player agency is when the adds something to the game independent of the GM. So a player has a character walk into town and say "I got to the alchemist shop". Note the player does NOT ask the DM if there is an alchemist shop in town, they just state they go there. Just because the GM agees and rolls out the red carpet does NOT mean the player did not just invent the 'something'.....

The other thing that MIGHT kind of qualify would be situations where a player can declare something, like in Torch Bearer 2 I could declare a check to see if I can find my allies in a town. Depending on how likely it is that they might reasonably be there will determine the difficulty of the check. I believe Burning Wheel has essentially the same sort of mechanics where players can make assertions about their character and things like his knowledge or relationships and then test their veracity. Again, all these sorts of things require plausibility and lack any of the character of players simply making up stuff.

Oh...look game examples!

So, when a player "determines" the "difficulty" they are NOT "just making stuff up", right?

This really is a classic example: A typical traditional GM will often say "no sorry all your allies are not 'just' right there waiting around to help you like sad video game characters" because the GM wants to play the game with just the PCs, not "the PCs and the whole NPC world". The player on the other hand will often say "oh, all my allies are in town at a...oh...convention...and they are happy to help" as the self insert self serving player will ALWAYS want to get free help if the can swindle it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think a lot of the conflict over definitions stem from discussing two different things, both of which are valid meanings of the word and both of which are even used in academia.

There is agency as in capacity to affect/control/influence. This type of agency is not binary. It is qualitative and multi-faceted. I don't think it makes sense to try and model mathematically (as it is qualitative), but I do agree with considering it multi-dimensional.

And as I have said--repeatedly--what is essential for many players who care about agency is that you have two equally necessary criteria:

1. You feel as though you have agency.
2. You actually do have agency.

I, personally, don't think agency is binary. I have only been speaking of it as such because Maxperson specifically does, and I wished to respect parts of their conception if they aren't a problem for me. But, despite the criteria above being perfectly straightforward and appropriate, I've had no end of ridiculous responses, including things like "there is no such thing as actually having agency," "there are no forms of agency, it's all the same," etc.

But there is also agency as in 'sense of agency'. That's a (mostly) binary thing. It is the quality of feeling in control of what is happening. One can even interpret it as a "do I have sufficient agency (of the above kind)?". It is also a subjective thing. Some individuals can feel deprived of agency even if they have capacity to affect/control/influence the world around them. A good example is when individual is placed affected by a calamity - even if the individual is legally free, has a decent amount of material wealth, etc. - they can easily feel completely deprived of agency. Midlife crisis is often about losing the sense of agency - and very often extremely subjectively so.

Yes. I've covered that. I've explicitly said that people IRL often lack agency (which, I mean, that should be obvious, but evidently not.) Also...if you're suffering a calamity, legal agency isn't really that relevant, is it? Financial and personal agency is rather more prevalent, both of which tend to be massively curtailed in . Midlife crisis is not really about agency; no discussion of the topic on any medical or personal discussion thereof mentions "agency" (except in the "organization" sense.) Instead, it is about whether one's past actions, skills, career, etc. have meaning, which is related to agency but not the same.

It is quite possible for a person to be mistaken about whether they have agency or not--but surely that is not simply a matter of opinion, it's also a matter of fact, and misunderstandings of fact can be clarified. Just as, for example, it is not simply a matter of opinion whether one has a functional limb, or money in one's bank account, or various other things. Certainly, one can (mistakenly) believe that one has little money when in fact one has much of it, but that mistaken belief is easily fixed by being informed of the true state of affairs. Things can be less obvious, of course, as with the functional limb or the like, but the fact of the matter generally tends to be quite persuasive here.

Both of these types of agency are used in literature. And I think both make sense in the context of RPGs. Therefore any point made or question raised should specify what kind of agency we're talking about (if it doesn't apply to both) - otherwise we just get a long series of back-and-forth that goes nowhere. We could label them objective agency and subjective agency?

Okay. I want objective agency. I've been quite clear about that; as I said before, I want to believe I have agency, and I want that belief to be correct. If others do not share that want...okay! That's no skin off my back. People have instead been telling me that it is impossible for that belief to be true or false, that I am a fool to even think it.

Finally, arguing over objective agency might make sense, but as I've repeated someone who is unhappy about lack of agency is not going to be won over by such argument (at least if so, they are an incredibly rare kind of person). They feel a subjective lack of agency. One should address this - as it is a relevant regardless of whether it is objectively true. If it is objectively true, that opens the door to certain tools (given that the rest of the group accept these tools). It is objectively false, it still needs to be addressed or the player will remain unhappy.

This requires that I grant what you said above--that one can objectively have agency, and yet feel that one lacks that agency. Note the "that"--one can feel one lacks (objective) agency of some specific type, and prioritize that type over other types one actually has, without a problem. But it would be a mistaken belief--one easily corrected by better information--to think one simply lacks a form of agency one truly has. If we assume good-faith discussion, I don't see how such a mistaken belief wouldn't be ameliorated by a conversation between adults.

A lot of people want very unreasonably things. People aren't always mature, rational and/or reasonable. That's why to me, 'sense of agency' is the important thing to look at. A player who feels empowered is a happy player. But I do appreciate systems with a different approach to player agency is a possible tool for solving problems with sense of agency. Especially for players who don't enjoy the GM having autocratic rule over narrative. For those it's pretty much the only answer. But changing systems is a big deal - and there may be different issues with the new system. One should consider the circumstances when thinking of the best solution.

Whereas I think it's belittling to presume that others will be unreasonable and immature. They may disappoint you, but giving others the benefit of the doubt is important.

And...you're talking about this as though anyone here is trying to convince anyone else to switch systems. We aren't. We are literally only defending the position that, all else being equal, games which offer objective agency (to use your term) of the "player agency" type in addition to objective agency of the "character agency" type...offer more agency. Hence why I have spoken of things like the two kinds of game both offering equivalent instances of (objective) character agency, but one of those types additionally offering (objective) player agency as well. These things are quite front-and-center, essentially impossible to be subject to the misplaced-belief stuff above, which some posters in this thread have made clear is part of why they do not want to play such games, because they don't like (objective) player agency, do not wish to have instances of it in their games, and very much prefer its absence. For them, all else being equal (meaning, equivalent instances of [objective] character agency), they prefer a lower-agency game--and that is a perfectly cromulent preference to have.

 

[pemerton]

Got it. I'm used to scalar valued explicitly meaning a unidimensional real value (at least as far as I know in stat, math, CS, the physical sciences, the definition Google pops up - the only issue is if they want to fight over whether it's the same as being a 1-vwcor or not I guess).

If it can be thought of as a vector with numerical components then some people could enjoy more of one dimension of agency and less of another. And the question of finding a total amount feels like it depends on if the different components are orthogonal/uncorrelated or not (as in orthogonal vs oblique rotations in factor analysis) and if the different components are viewed as being on the same scale in a meaningful sense (is one unit of X agency equal to one unit of Y agency). You could still have A have more agency than B if A was greater on every component.

I personally do not think that the mathematical discussions are very interesting. (I've said the same to @EzekielRaiden.)

Whether or not the press in a society are a free press is obviously something that is multi-dimensional, in the sense that there are multiple relevant considerations which are not easily commensurable let alone straightforwardly cumulative. Yet it is possible to talk, with quite a degree of coherence, about the extent to which the press is free in (say) Australia compared to Russia compared to Saudi Arabia.

If someone purported to produce a mathematical demonstration that when I play through a total railroad, but get to decide the accent my PC speaks in, I have as much agency over the shared fiction as in (say) my own experienced Burning Wheel play, then all that would show is that something is wrong with their maths. I don't need a mathematical theory to grasp the contrast between the two cases.

And this is the discussion I think we had before. I'm not sure what example I used then, but say we have: "An ogre who snuck into the keep steps out from behind the shed and advances on you." "Good, does it fall in the pit I dug their yesterday." It feels like this could be done in good faith in some set-ups, and could also be abused as an I win button by a player viewing it as getting to alter reality if they just use the right phrasing.

Consider "An ogre who snuck into the keep steps out from behind the shed and advances on you," "Good, I draw my sword and cut its head off!" It feels like this could be done in good faith in some set-ups, and could also be abused as an I win button by a player viewing it as getting to alter reality if they just use the right phrasing.

Now can we actually talk about the rules and play of actual games?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If 1 action(put a piece down on the board) is the same as 18(move 16 different pieces, plus castling, en passant) actions with regard to agency, how do you justify one RPG style giving more agency than another due to the number of actions(options) they give?

They aren't different actions. They're one action: move a piece. It has different flavors or whatever, but it's all one action.

Also, "options" are quite different from "actions." Like, worlds apart. I'm not even sure how it's possible you could conflate the two. A menu has options on it, it doesn't have actions on it.

It is a count. It's an agency count of 20 for you and an agency count of 8 for me, even though we each had the same 20 actions. A count is a count and we can measure agency for both of us. Now what does comparing 8 to 20 actually mean? Not a whole heck of a lot.

At least one of the two must be an incorrect count though. Either there were 20 instances in which a person actually did have influence or control, or there were 8 instances in which a person actually did have influence or control, or some other nonnegative number of instances where a person actually did have influence or control. It's possible someone could have failed to notice an instance that did happen, but that would be them having a false negative. It's also possible someone could have erroneously counted an instance where a person did not actually have influence or control, in which case that would be a false positive.

But there would have to be some finite, nonnegative number of instances where a person really did actually have influence or control. It could be zero, it could be twenty, it could be a thousand. (I assume we agree that an infinite set of such events is not possible?) Some number is the correct count of instances where a person actually did have influence or control.

You were going really well until the bolded. Both are in fact correct. If the event doesn't mean anything to me, I have agency during that event, even if it does mean something to you and you have agency. To have agency the choices have to mean something. Maybe having the choice to twiddle your thumbs or not and piss off the BBEG gives you agency, but it doesn't give it to me.

No. They are not. Either you have influence or control, or you don't. There are certainly degrees of influence and control. And I certainly agree that agency over events which have meaning is a key concern, as has been discussed previously. But if you have influence or control over the events in question, you have agency--it may just not be agency you are interested in. This should not be surprising. You have agency, for example, over which outfit you put on each morning. Does that outfit have meaning in any real sense? Not really. Yet it is still a demonstration of agency, and if (for example) you were forced to only wear a government-supplied uniform each day, you would have lost agency, even though that agency has very little meaning overall. It is a demonstration of agency to choose which foods you prepare for yourself--and it is a loss of agency to, for example, have to give up sugary sodas because medicine you are taking has induced diabetes. Is there meaning in choosing to drink sugary soda vs diet soda? I don't think anyone would argue that that is a choice with meaning to it, yet it is still a demonstration of agency.

(I've had personal reasons for helping, and dealing with, someone losing a great deal of agency in this and related ways, despite the choices involved having little to no meaning involved. Meaning is not required for agency. It's just a relevant concern for the kinds of agency we're talking about here, the kinds relevant to game design.)

Authors are literally railroading everything in their books. It goes exactly how they say it does.

Yes...I wasn't talking about READERS having agency. I was talking about AUTHORS having agency. A form of agency that radically differs from what I have over my own life.

 

[Cadence]

I personally do not think that the mathematical discussions are very interesting. (I've said the same to @EzekielRaiden.)

I was just (apparently over) explaining why the word choice confused me.

Whether or not the press in a society are a free press is obviously something that is multi-dimensional, in the sense that there are multiple relevant considerations which are not easily commensurable let alone straightforwardly cumulative. Yet it is possible to talk, with quite a degree of coherence, about the extent to which the press is free in (say) Australia compared to Russia compared to Saudi Arabia.

<Avoids getting mathy and blathering on about projections and general factors and other things that would back you up here.>

If someone purported to produce a mathematical demonstration that when I play through a total railroad, but get to decide the accent my PC speaks in, I have as much agency over the shared fiction as in (say) my own experienced Burning Wheel play, then all that would show is that something is wrong with their maths. I don't need a mathematical theory to grasp the contrast between the two cases.

Not all cases of course are that extreme. And it feels like if one only cares about contrasting very extreme cases then not much machinery (whether sociological or measurement theory wise) is needed at all. (Well, wouldn't be needed having the discussion in some places).

Consider "An ogre who snuck into the keep steps out from behind the shed and advances on you," "Good, I draw my sword and cut its head off!" It feels like this could be done in good faith in some set-ups, and could also be abused as an I win button by a player viewing it as getting to alter reality if they just use the right phrasing.

<Inserts something about the arrow of time that I don't think you found relevant last time >

Now can we actually talk about the rules and play of actual games?

I mean... you've seen how ENWorld discussions "work" for quite a while now. What do you think ;-)

 

[pemerton]

I'm not expert but I can think of examples that were provided that unless I'm mistaken were from those games that went beyond what I've called 'character agency'

I take "character agency" to refer to a player declaring what their PC thinks, feels, does, and the like. What is an example of play from Dungeon World, Apocalypse World or Burning Wheel that involves a player establishing shared fiction other than by declaring what their PC thinks, feels, does etc?

Im curious - Why shouldn't different constraints on the exercise of agency be referred to as different types of agency? Is there something different that 'types of agency' would better refer to?

What clarity is added by referring to them as different types of agency?

To me this seems like positing that different vessels for carrying water should therefore lead us to talk about different types of water. Why would we want to do that? If we were planning a very specific sort of dinner party, perhaps we might? (Eg we might want to serve water in carafes, while having buckets of water in the kitchen for dropping dirty plates into.) But if we were trying to measure the total volume of water available, the distinction between vessels wouldn't be very interesting as best I can see.

In this thread I have consistently been interested in talking about the agency that players enjoy in respect of the shared fiction. That agency doesn't become different in character because there is a particular game rule or process that constrains it.

And the introduction of additional constraints (eg the player can't declare their PC's veridical mental states except by first consulting the GM about permissible contents of those mental states) seems to be typically intended by proponents of "character agency" but it is not normally mentioned by them - eg they will often say the player is in charge of what their PC thinks and feels but in fact that turns out not to be the case, given the GM's control over permissible veridical mental-state contents.

I'm not quite sure what this means - and normally I would attempt to guess but I think that will likely do more damage than just asking for clarification.

I have posted multiple examples upthread of players declaring their PCs' actions and mental states:

*I keep my eyes open for a member of my order who might help us;

*I keep my eyes open for any family who might come by;

*I seem to recall Evard's tower was in this vicinity;

*I was working on the Falcon's Claw before we had to flee our tower; I wonder if it is still here?​

All these declarations either include, or presuppose, mental states, more-or-less along the following lines:

*I believe that I am a member of an order whose other members are likely to be in this general area;

*I believe I have a family, and that I'm in our home territory;

*I remember that there is a great wizard called Evard, who - as is typical of wizards - lived in a tower;

*I remember the Falcon's Claw, and the circumstances in which I fled the tower where I was apprenticed with my brother.​

In a game like Apocalypse World or Burning Wheel, the starting point for adjudicating the declared actions is to treat the presupposed mental states as veridical (ie as true beliefs or memories). It is thus ruled out, except in unusual cases where the player fails the roll to determine the outcome of the declared action, that the PC is deluded in remembering things about their order, their family, the history of the great wizards, what they were doing when they were an apprentice, etc.

My very strong impression - confirmed by this thread - is that many RPGers believe that the GM has a veto over these veridical mental states. Eg that the player can't declare a true belief or memory about their order, their family, their knowledge of the great wizards, etc without first checking with the GM. Just one example of a post that confirms my impression is this from @Oofta (post 177):

In D&D, if the player makes a knowledge check, the DM gets to decide the details of what is remembered. The player remembers what's in the tower? Okay. The DM tells them what they remember. It's a totally different approach. I prefer the way D&D does it but that's not relevant to the fact that the player is making changes to the fiction of the world. We do that to a small degree in D&D when it comes to fluff and inconsequential details about their player such as hair color or general details about their clothes.​

That is not a statement about limiting players to "character agency". It is stating an additional constraint that is about GM authority over the content of veridical mental states. And the constraint stated is that unless the content of the veridical mental state is inconsequential, the GM gets to decide.

A high player agency game can confine players to "character agency" - nearly every RPG that I play has that character. But the principle that Oofta stated back in post 177, and that I restated in the post you quoted, is not consistent with high player agency over the shared fiction, because it hands all the agency over things that matter to the GM.

Playing a scene in the present tense - jumping to the past tense to establish something useful for the present tense (not time travel) - from the perspective of the present tense right before the jump to the past tense there was a change.

What changed? Within the shared fiction, what was altered?

The mechanical nature of how that change came about matters - mechanics and not just the resulting fiction mattering is a sentiment you've shared with me quite often in the past so it mattering here shouldn't really come as a surprise. It's not really wishing something into existence - but absent ironing out the language to better articulate the issue - it's not like all these diverse people all make up the same issue either.

I'd also suggest this is the same reason that 'remembering the tower with potentially useful stuff in it is nearby' also is an issue for many. Honestly, flashbacks of something not already established in the game and memories of stuff not already established in the game are essentially the same thing. A flashback for all intents and purposes is a memory!

I'm am discussing a particular point: namely, whether or not PCs in these RPGs can "alter reality", or whether players can "alter reality" beyond declaring what it is that their PCs do, think, feel, remember, etc.

On the issue of "a tower with useful stuff": exploring towers which might contain useful stuff sums up nearly the whole of the core D&D experience! (Except sometimes instead of towers they're tunnels.) The issue I see is not that the play of the game involves exploring a tower to potentially find useful stuff. It's that the GM is not the one deciding all the details of the towers and the useful stuff that they containt.

in exploration, the person exploring is in control of the exploration - even though their exploration does reveal 'delightful gifts' the DM provides.

What does it mean to be "in control" of the exploration? Do you mean they choose what to poke at, so they exercise some degree of control over prompts to the GM?

Suppose that is what you mean. We can then talk about the process whereby the GM decides what to say when prompted. The most orthodox that I'm aware of is to state what is in their notes.

 

[pemerton]

Go has one single action. Put a piece on the board. You can "choose" which spot to put the piece on, but you are railroading into the single action the DM has forced you into.

You can't describe a move in go without describing the change the move makes to the board. This means that there is no single action - there is a choice of many actions (roughly, equal to the number of vacant points on the board).

Go also doesn't have a GM.

 

[Maxperson]

They aren't different actions. They're one action: move a piece. It has different flavors or whatever, but it's all one action.

It's move a knight and move a pawn. Those are different actions. Move a piece only applies to a game with one piece type, like Go. It's too vague to apply to a game with multiple pieces.

Also, "options" are quite different from "actions." Like, worlds apart. I'm not even sure how it's possible you could conflate the two. A menu has options on it, it doesn't have actions on it.

In the universe we live in, sure. In an RPG you are taking actions. Not the combat definition, but a declaration of what your character does. The character acts to do X, Y and Z. Options not taken are also not relevant. We can't even know all of the options in an RPG, let alone use them. Only actions matter.

At least one of the two must be an incorrect count though. Either there were 20 instances in which a person actually did have influence or control, or there were 8 instances in which a person actually did have influence or control, or some other nonnegative number of instances where a person actually did have influence or control.

No. Neither number is wrong. One had 20 instances where the influence matter and 0 where it didn't, the other had 8 instances where it matters and 12 where it didn't. Meaning is necessary for agency. If you aren't given me an option that means anything, I effectively don't have that option. It's not something I'm going to do.

It's possible someone could have failed to notice an instance that did happen, but that would be them having a false negative. It's also possible someone could have erroneously counted an instance where a person did not actually have influence or control, in which case that would be a false positive.

So look. Let's assume for a moment that you are correct and it's just instances where you could have influence. It's impossible to think of every possible way you could influence a game. If you are correct that it's literally impossible to count agency or know which is greater. At least with what I'm saying you can count it.

But there would have to be some finite, nonnegative number of instances where a person really did actually have influence or control. It could be zero, it could be twenty, it could be a thousand. (I assume we agree that an infinite set of such events is not possible?) Some number is the correct count of instances where a person actually did have influence or control.

It doesn't matter if it's infinite or not, it's still unknowable, so what's the point of even trying to count. Even if you can count to a bigger number with your narrative game, mine might still have a greater number overall that we are all missing.

There's literally no point in comparing the two at all if you are correct.

No. They are not. Either you have influence or control, or you don't. There are certainly degrees of influence and control. And I certainly agree that agency over events which have meaning is a key concern, as has been discussed previously. But if you have influence or control over the events in question, you have agency--it may just not be agency you are interested in. This should not be surprising. You have agency, for example, over which outfit you put on each morning. Does that outfit have meaning in any real sense? Not really. Yet it is still a demonstration of agency, and if (for example) you were forced to only wear a government-supplied uniform each day, you would have lost agency, even though that agency has very little meaning overall. It is a demonstration of agency to choose which foods you prepare for yourself--and it is a loss of agency to, for example, have to give up sugary sodas because medicine you are taking has induced diabetes. Is there meaning in choosing to drink sugary soda vs diet soda? I don't think anyone would argue that that is a choice with meaning to it, yet it is still a demonstration of agency.

Since degree if influence isn't relevant to agency and what you describe there is binary, "Either you have influence or control, or you don't." then it seems like we mostly agree about agency. Especially since regardless of which one of us is correct(if either one of us even is), it's impossible to compare agency and therefore worthless to even try.