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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8163115" data-attributes="member: 16814">This seems to have missed my complaint -- that the very fact that I cannot pick up situation or setting without also picking up character (at least in the vast majority of cases) says to me that these are arbitrary categorizations of play.  They do not have independence, and cannot be evaluated independently.  The best we can do is treat these like an equalizer on a stereo -- I might be able to say that I put Characterization at +1, Situation at -1, and Setting at -2, but this is, again, not very useful because it doesn't have a baseline comparison, it's a subjective evaluation.  At least the stereo actually defines +0, and the steps are actual measurements.  This approach just adds another layer of mysticism and jargon to an already challenging discussion.Which is why I argue there's no subdivisions of agency.  You can evaluate a given situation for more or less agency than another one without inventing categories such as these.So, again, Venn diagrams are not always useful.  One that features Men and Telephone Poles might have overlap in the area of Tall, for instance, but this is only useful in a very narrow categorization.  Just saying that there's overlap on a Venn diagram doesn't show usefulness.  Or, to put it another way, all models are wrong, some are useful.  Saying you have a model doesn't show usefulness.And, the overlap you're showing between Protagonism and Tactics/Strategy is one that is orthogonal -- the overlap can vary depending on what we're looking at because Protagonism isn't related to Tactics/Strategy in any way -- I can have zero Protagonism (no overlap at all) or maximal Protagonism (complete overlap) for Tactics or Strategy.  Venn diagrams work to show where there's a commonality, and a diagram where one factor can vary independently of the others doesn't show commonality.  So, again, I'm making the argument that the categories aren't coherent with each other at a structural level, without even touching on usefulness.To touch on usefulness, you've again created an arbitrary division -- the lines between what's tactical and strategic are crazy blurry -- that doesn't really establish a clear way to tell one instance of agency from another except by subjective equalizer sliders, which are again unmoored from any measurements are are more feelings of how a thing works.  And, since we're right back to looking at a situation of agency in a way where we can't make objective statements, but rather can, at best, point to where there's a large enough difference to discern, I'm not sure what these categories add to the discussion.  It also lends (false) credence to the idea that combat in 5e AP play, which is high on the Tactical slider, offsets the high Protagonism slider in My Life with Master.  However, the fact that 5e AP play is high in Tactical play ignores that it's the system that does this, not the play -- 5e features a strong combat resolution sub-game that enables Tactical decision making in combat, if not anywhere else.  My Life with Master has no combat resolution sub-game, just the common resolution game that's used throughout.  Is it then useful to look at play like 5e AP play that could enable Protagonism and Strategy, but doesn't and say that since it has high Tactical play, it's agency level is similar to a game that doesn't have the ability to engage the same kinds of Tactical play, but features agency throughout?  This is the problem, to me, of binning agency -- it leads to bad comparisons because the arbitrary nature of the bins encourages evaluations of play that are localized and narrow that are then used at a wider level.  5e features a lot of tactical agency in combat, but combats have low strategic agency and no protagonism agency, so overall agency is low.  My Life with Master is focused on enabling high levels of agency throughout play, but has no tactical sub-game and so rates low in this area, which appears to show that these games are closer in player agency than actual play would indicate.All that said, I think it is useful to note that games like 5e, through their design, create space where agency exists that other games do not (like in combat).  However, I think that this needs to be evaluated holistically rather than narrowly, because it's important to note that while 5e does create this space in combats for agency to exist (and it does), this is still within the framework of the GM largely determining when combats occur and what the outcome of them are -- maybe not in hitpoints or dead enemies, but certainly in narrative.   And this evaluation is missing from your P/T/S framework because it's looking a narrower categories and have no way of summing to a holistic conclusion.</blockquote>

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