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Message: <blockquote data-quote="chaochou" data-source="post: 8132699" data-attributes="member: 99817">Yes, this is critical. Nearly all the examples I see, of choosing left paths or right paths, of orcs or spiders, fail to examine the real questions of agency such as:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Who created the need for my character to travel at all?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Who authored where my character needed to go?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Who created the reason for my character going there?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">What is my character going to do when they get there?</li> </ul>Most discussions on the topic implicitly include the answers:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The GM</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The GM</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The GM</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The thing the GM says needs doing</li> </ul>In other words, GM force is so heavily presupposed in nearly all the given examples that there's no point engaging them.Player agency is a loop which has to begin from the first moment of play (or not). From that point on the creation of purpose for the character doesn't change hands - either the player gets to do it explicitly, or the GM does it implicitly.And if it features agency then play from that point on is, as you describe, a cycle of action declaration and action resolution until the player decides their purpose is achieved or failed or that the character has changed and their purpose has shifted.</blockquote>

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