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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8137115" data-attributes="member: 82106">Well, I would look at it as the idea of "bodily agency", that a player can expect to direct the physical activity of the character, and form her intentions and opinions is not really worth noting, except maybe where it might be lacking. I'll admit, there are a VERY few niche games that don't grant it (Paranoia, the computer regularly forces PCs to do things, shoving pills down their throats if necessary to get it done). D&D has 'charm', which might be placed on a PC in a very limited situation, generally (and few players are happy about it most of the time). Still, we can assume players direct their characters. There's no real need to discuss this in terms of 'agency', and if it is ALL a player gets, we can consider that to be the minimum of possible agency available in RPGs.So, ANY really meaningful discussion of agency, and the way the OP framed his question, dealt not with that, but with actual power over the fate and destiny of the characters, and over the material which they will encounter, BEYOND simply choosing to go through the door with orcish voices behind it, or the one with the horrible rotting smell. As long as the plot and content of the game remain absolutely 100% the domain of the GM, there is certainly a hard limit!We can establish that certain practices of principled play can increase agency. If the GM informs players of the consequences of their moves; if the GM only threatens players prior 'winnings' by offering to accept them as stakes in some new enterprise; if the GM always builds upon what the players are signalling they want to engage in when framing scenes or narrating consequences. These would be at a 'next level' where players and PCs are more central, where the shape and direction of the narrative often (or even always) shape themselves in a shape that the players influence. This is basically where DW and other PbtA games are. In a few cases DW gives the player a bit more. For example the previously mentioned wizard 'cast a spell' move, or even the Volley move, where the consequences of a 7-9 are picked by the player, though the GM usually still has some role in that. Players deciding which questions must be answered in the Discern Realities move can also be a form of input.Now, beyond that we get into BW, where players regularly add information to the setting, as [USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER] has described in the game he was playing in. That is a bit higher level type of agency, though it certainly falls short of really directly dictating the narrative, except in specific areas. The GM is still pretty free to shape what exactly things mean in a lot of cases. Rufus would be a case where the player pretty much dictated, since he was getting something from his background.Obviously we can go on from there into truly collaborative story telling games and whatnot, though I am personally not really familiar with that genre.</blockquote>

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