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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8139267" data-attributes="member: 16814">Where?  The player didn't create the room the chest was in, nor the chest that might contain the macguffin.  Their intent to find the macguffin in the chest is tested, and most likely involves complication rather than success.  This is not the player inventing everything, it's the player declaring an action and the testing to see what happens when they do.  The problem I think you see is that the player can achieve a goal that isn't written by the GM in some way.  Given the below, this seems very clear.So long as we agree that you're fooling yourself into thinking there's a reality here and what's really happening is that the GM is telling you what happens according to their thinking.  And, that's fine, some GM's deliver amazingly entertaining stories.  However, if this is the case -- if your enjoyment rests upon the GM having full narrative control and spinning it out in a way that creates an illusion of a world for you -- then your accepting that your ability to make meaningful choices is entirely constrained by the GM.  If the GM retains the final ability to say no, then you don't have any authority to enforce the meaningfulness of your choices.  This is what is meant by lower agency -- your ability to make meaningful choices is contained within the GM's authority.I don't see anyone quantifying agency -- where are the measurements?!  Instead, we're looking at things and saying that in this case your ability to make meaningful choices is only when the GM allows it and in the other we're saying that such is not the case.  This isn't an objective quantification, it's a relative comparison without quantification.  It's the same way I can't measure love but can say that there's more love in a family than between despised enemies (barring juxtaposition).It's absolutely fine to enjoy GM led play -- it is, by far, the dominate form of RPG play by market share, number of players, etc.  There's nothing wrong with it.  What I find distressing is that when confronted with an alternative method that increasing one aspect of play which a player might find enjoyable there's a refusal to accept that different methods have different results.  In the case of agency, there are methods of play that increase it and methods that decrease it (again, assuming good faith play, there are clearly bad faith ways to reduce agency in any system).  This doesn't make one better than the other -- better is a ridiculous concept outside of personal enjoyment.  For instance, you find traditional play better than [USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER] does, but that doesn't make traditional play strictly better.  We should be able to look at our own play and analyze it without rancor or defensiveness.  I run 5e and enjoy it while simultaneously accepting that it's a lower agency game than the PbtA family.  That's not a problem, and I'm not quantifying agency to say this -- I can look and see it's true!  Just like I can say that there's more love between a mother and child than between fans of Highlander and Highlander 2 (I know, fictional example).</blockquote>

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