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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8148324" data-attributes="member: 16814">People also think they experience centrifugal force, but there's no such thing, it's a misinterpretation of inertia and centripetal force.  Same here, thinking there's different types of agency in RPGs is a misinterpretation, usually due to ingrained thought processes, and not actually because there's different types of agency.  There's only one agency -- the player's.  And, I say this because, just a few short years ago, I'd have been on your side of the argument (and was, I believe).  I made similar arguments, but, on reflection, I found them unable to withstand scrutiny.In specific, you're referring to the agency to determine your character's "inner life."  The issues here are that this is just window dressing -- it doesn't invoke agency.  It doesn't because nothing in the gamestate changes regardless of how hard you imagine your character's inner life.  It's only when you engage the game with an action declaration that agency is invoked, so there's no such thing as agency over your character's "inner life" in this regard.The second angle of attack you've deployed is that it's a loss of agency to have aspects of your character be placed in question or at risk.  This is fundamentally flawed because of course aspects of your character are placed at risk all the time else you don't even have a game.  Hitpoints are placed at risk.  Equipment is placed at risk (those terrible rust monsters!).  Etc.  The issue here isn't a difference in a kind of agency, but a confusion that beliefs and desires are somehow a different category.  This is the ingrained thought process showing up, because D&D has long established that this is an area that game just doesn't address at all.  It's not that it's a special area, or needs special treatment, but just a choice in design that's now been internalized as an important distinction.  And, it is, in that it's a clear delineation about what the game will be about.  D&D will not be about being unexpected turned on by something else (well, it is, but it's usually lampshaded by "magic"), but instead about your character's physical well-being in dangerous situations.  That's it -- it's not a special kind of agency, it's just a design decision about the themes of the game.  Character emotions are no more sacrosanct than hitpoints.  It's preference that makes the difference here, not a unique subcategory of agency.</blockquote>

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