The counter to this is that it's only there because the GM placed it (or is following the text, which is functionally the same thing). You, as a player, cannot choose to play up your piety and push that so that the game responds -- you can't choose to have something like the Moon tribe be important -- only the GM does this (in any game with such a text). As such the "path" to the end is still ruled by the same thing -- the GM's desire -- and not the players. While you can definitely explore the GM's desires in different ways, is that a useful observation in the context of agency?
Is someone arguing it is the only form of player agency? I'm certainly not... but I also believe it can easily be a type of player agency...
It is false or true totally dependent upon the game being played, the DM/GM running it and numerous other factors. That's the problem with blanket statements.
I have read the DMG, multiple times. I'm a huge participant in threads that recommend following the DMG. I don't, in fact, disagree with you that play is better if you do it the way you're recommending -- I recommend it as well. What I'm saying is that you're mistaken that this is as concrete as you suggest -- it's more hinted at in a lot of places. And, again, as strong evidence that it isn't as concrete as you say, I point to the official products that don't do what you suggest. That you're don't run APs is really a non sequitur -- so what, I try to avoid them as well. But, if the company that produces the rules also produces multiple popular products that treat those rules differently from how you understand them AND there's a virtual dearth of complaints about that difference, perhaps your understanding of the concreteness of the DMG's recommendations is flawed. Not, mind, your recommendations -- these are excellent, and I do find them hinted at in the DMG.
It seems you are looking at a specific type of agency (non-scripted results perhaps). I on the other hand accept that agency can exist even if there is pre-determined results for the exertion of said agency.
The assertion isn't 'zero agency', but that they are at the lowest baseline level of player agency that is likely to exist in any RPG, some niche exceptions (Paranoia for example) aside. It seems odd to center the debate on THAT. Everyone grants that players RP their characters and often make decisions based on that RP, and that being able to make decisions which steer the character to a different 'region' of the fiction is a form of player agency. Again, it is pretty much the baseline, and the fact that even the most strictly 'classic' GMs seem to (on paper at least) agree to abhor force, illusionism, and most railroading in principle seems to validate that.
Yeah, the atmosphere thing is fair. I had a whole LONG thread on traps, years back, and we did come up with that as one function of traps. The 'toll bridge' COULD also be a viable function in a case where it is presented as "quickly escape through this trapped corridor, or go the roundabout way and risk capture." or something like that.
This is wholly incorrect. No such RPGs have been cited in this thread that match that description.
The games I've seen, there's some mechanical way for the GM to inflict this as damage, because these mental facets of your character (trying really hard to avoid specific game terms) can be staked in tests. This isn't wildly unlike in 5E, the results for failing a Wis save after an hour within a mile (?) of a demon lord, where you can be forced to add a Flaw to your character sheet. The closest I've seen to the kind of thing you're talking about are games that have as part of chargen a requirement that you have mechanical ties to other PCs on your character sheet, and/or a requirement that you have something like the Trouble Aspect later versions of Fate want.
