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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 8156828"><p>Because agency is about being able to make meaningful choices. My words and political strategies are meaningful choices I am making in play to advance my goals. Isn't more agency enhancing to put power to my actual choices rather than shift them to a mechanic. Now this does require that the GM adjudicate my choices. Which, I would argue, is the very essence of what makes an RPG. It is that on the spot ability of a human hearing what you are trying to do, and then logically applying that to the world. Keep in mind, I may be doing very specific things, like inviting senators to feasts, with the aim of doing  putting them in a compromising position, which I can exploit to force them to ally with me. And I may be saying very specific things, as Cicero did, in my speech. Now it is true, people may be unmoved by what I say, and my attempts to put senators in positions where I can essentially blackmail them into voting my way could backfire or simply not work. But if you have a mechanic in place for managing those things, all those specific choices I have made (which are an expression of my agency) have no meaning if a simple die roll can undo them. In fact the only real agency I have is at character creation when I take the relevant social skills, between sessions when I upgrade them. The only other meaningful choice I might have is to use or not use them. Granted some systems might give more weight to things I say and do, and factor those into the mechanic. But that just helps prove my point that for there to be real agency, what I say and do, need to actually matter because those kinds of things in an RPG are all about making meaningful choices. And they are also FUN. There is tremendous fun to be had if you are in a political intrigue campaign like I describe, to actually engage in political intrigue.</p></blockquote><p></p>

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