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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 8159186" data-attributes="member: 85870">Realize I already wrote one essay-length post today, but I had a few additional thoughts.One, I want to recognize that despite my disagreement with [USER=6795602]@FrogReaver[/USER] and [USER=7025508]@Crimson Longinus[/USER] on what they see as untenable components of player-facing systems, I don't want to discount that their objections are coming from a real place.In a socially constructed activity like roleplaying, there is a significant element of risk any time a GM considers upsetting the status quo. Despite my desire to branch out from more "traditional", GM-facing, task-resolution systems, that's not to say that there isn't value in what such systems provide.There's absolutely a core substance, or space, or experience derived from D&D and its progeny, offshoots, and alternatives that has provided sustained value to participants for close to 50 years.That's not trivial. It is, in fact, remarkable in the extreme.I think the purpose of having conversations like this one is to give all of us ideas, considerations, components, techniques, and systems of thought that will increase our ability to achieve consistent excellence of play and high satisfaction within our hobby.This is also not trivial (even though our games contain seemingly trivial elements like elves, gnomes, and dragons).Two, I've been thinking tremendously about how much result follows intent when it comes to how much player agency to allow/disallow.The why behind systems like PbtA, Burning Wheel, BitD, Fate, etc., is extremely important. A tremendous amount of effort, thought, and design rationale has been explicitly "baked in" to those systems, because they are designed from a specific intent.I think much of the tenor of conversation around these systems stems from how much that intent is personally valued.If the intent is to provide a different experience from "classic" D&D, then conversations will naturally revolve around processes that are perceived weaknesses or flaws in "classic" D&D.Three, the idea has come up over and over that there's different "kinds" of player agency at stake when a game is in action. And I don't know that it's ever fully been addressed whether this is a "thing" or not.Earlier, [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] broke down player agency into subsets: Setting, Situation, and Character.As that was 50+ pages of posts ago, I don't know that I fully explored this.The problem as I see it, is that the notion of whether there's different "kinds" of agency is related to the interplay between subsets. Meaning, does an increase in player agency in one subset have the ability to decrease agency in another? And if so, does the increase in one subset increase the overall level of agency relative to the whole, even if agency is diminished in another subset---or is it zero-sum?Furthermore, have we fully identified the ways that players can actually express, or activate agency in play?As I see it, there's a few ways for a player to activate agency: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Direct authorship ("I declare this to be true about the fiction, without any consultation to systematic rules framework").</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Rules-mediated authorship ("I'm spending metacurrency X, which by rule means I can now declare the following thing(s) to be true in the fiction"). </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Character generation/advancement ("Because my character has these skills, this background, and these traits and flaws, it must naturally follow that the following things are true in the fiction").</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Action declaration ("My character chooses to perform action X. If he/she succeeds at his/her intent, then the following thing(s) in the fiction must be true"). (Naturally, action declarations will largely be mediated through rules conventions to determine the "truthiness" or "falsiness" of the declaration.)</li> </ul>Are there additional ways to activate player agency?*Edit --- added Rules-mediated Authorship.</blockquote>

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