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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8133344" data-attributes="member: 29398">This is fine as far as it goes, but it predicates itself on a very static game world; where events can't occur that alter what the players (think they) know.  In many cases this is what happens, but not always......such as an example where the PCs pass a room in which there is an Ogre; they sneak away, spend ten minutes planning an assault, and return only to find the Ogre isn't there any more. (it has by random chance and for whatever reason moved to another nearby room)  Or now there's two Ogres (the first one's mate returned from another room).I don't see this as invalidating player agency.  They had agency at the time they saw the Ogre and made the choices to a) sneak off and b) return later rather than attack right then; and returning later always runs the risk - however slight - of things having materially changed in the meantime.On a larger scale, the PCs might have visited a town at some point in their played careers, and want to go back there now; but either before or after getting there they learn to their dismay that town's been almost wiped out by some natural disaster.  This natural disaster could be either due to GM pre-planning (e.g. notes "Volcano erupts over Fjallsburg three days after midwinter 1088 causing [50+d45]% casualties to each of people and structures" and the PCs go there in 1089) or due to random roll (e.g. GM rolls d% to see how the town's been doing, dice come up 01 i.e. as bad as possible, GM has to dream up what might have happened). Obviously this sort of thing won't be common, but I don't see any reason why it can't be allowed to happen at all.Which takes away the option of "We go to place X without any real goal at all", which is often how exploratory play can unfold: basically the players are for whatever reason(s) asking the GM to set them a new scene with which to interact.  Or perhaps the goal is simply to get to place X (i.e. "We go to place X to achieve the goal of going to place X"); or to get away from some element at place W from which they depart.Fine, though all of those seem to be interposing between the PCs and getting to place X, before achieving goal Y even enters the picture. (in other words, the original action declaration might need to be unpacked a bit or broken down into stages)That, I suppose, depends on the types of goals the players set for their PCs.  If a player's goal for their PC is simply to get rich or die trying, then what?They do and they don't.  They have agency over their own PCs and over those PCs' interactions with the game world and events therein.  They don't have agency over how elements within the game world are going to react to them and-or what they do.  The GM plays the NPCs; and if the PCs are wading into a three-way conflict in those woods between the Druid, some Orcs, and a pack of spiders then so be it - it's on them to figure it out and-or to figure out whose if any side they want to support.</blockquote>

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