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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8153763" data-attributes="member: 16814">You've just contradicted yourself -- if the RNG averages out (which is a false assumption on the prob and stats side for a single combat), then tactics don't really matter as much -- it's really just the average numbers that matter.  Luckily, as I noted, your assumption about the averaging out isn't exactly correct, so tactics can make more of an impact.  And, I fully agree, ability to deploy tactics in D&D is a mark of agency.  The combat sub-system in D&D, with it's tightly codified rules and expectations, is a place that players get to wield more agency because the GM is strongly discouraged from just overriding those rules -- they're usually expected to abide by them.Odd, then, that you're claiming more agency exists in a tightly codified mechanical ruleset when it comes to D&D, but saying that it does the opposite in other games?  Very odd, indeed!I've explained the entire process a few times, now, and if this is your take after that, then I can only assume that you're incapable of understanding or intentionally unwilling to do so.  Given how often you've shifted the goalposts, though -- moving from RNGs, to Czege Principle violations, and now to claiming that being able to push your interests onto the fiction is a mark of low agency, I'm leaning towards the latter.I mean, you've just said that the player being able to make their PC's goals relevant in the game is low-agency!  What, praytell, is a mark of high agency if it doesn't involve the player making things they care about part of the game?! No, that's not it at all.  I think that making my interests part of the game is agency.  That I engage the game's mechanics is just a pathway, the important bit for agency is that I can make the game acknowledge what I am interested in.  Contrast this to D&D.  Similar situation, the player wants to see if this painting is worth something towards their PC's goal.  The GM checks their notes and says, "nah."  How is this somehow more agency than in Blades where the GM has to acknowledge this and then uses the system to resolve the question -- "is this painting worth something to the PC's goal?"  I'm utterly baffled by your analysis, largely because of the double standard involved -- you try to pin down the Blades play and claim that having to roll dice removes agency, or the player being able to make the game about things they care about removes agency, but when you look back at your own play you do not apply these things -- you make different arguments that checks don't matter because they average out(!) and that you have agency when you get to playact your asking the GM for their favor in making what you care about part of the game(!).  It's ridiculous the knots you're tying yourself up into -- arguing out of one set of standards on the for side, and a different set of standard on the against side.  And, every time it's pointed out, it's either ignored or you trot out some new form of special pleading that says that doesn't count.</blockquote>

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