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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 8163954" data-attributes="member: 6785785">No one said there was anything wrong with running your game the way you want. My objection was to a specific example that was offered, and your response.  That example is one I would say is a problem, for the reasons already stated. It's not that I can't entertain the thought of it. I absolutely can. I've played in plenty of those kinds of games. They're perfectly fine.What I can't do is reconcile your idea that your described game offers a high degree of player agency when the idea of an agenda crafted by a player for his character either (a) shouldn't even be proposed, or (b) is left to the GM to simply negate out of hand if he decides that's what he'd like to do. The play of your game seems to be to unleash the PCs into the world and watch them interact with elements you've crafted. They're free to do whatever they like, and to interact with the elements of the fiction however they like, and so on. That is fine.....I largely run my D&D game like this. The PCs do things, and the world reacts, and then the PCs react to that, and so on. It's fun and engaging and my group enjoys it.Again, I don't think that running a game that has a heavy GM hand in such matters is a bad thing. If anything is bad, it would be to even allow the player to think that any agenda they had in mind at the start of play mattered at all. Just say up front "I know you wanted your PC to be searching for his brother, but I'm not really going to focus on pre-established goals like that. This game is about you using your character to explore the world I've crafted and to see what happens."So this is partly the issue. You say that the GM has full setting control, but then you won't acknowledge that games that allow players some input on setting offer more agency. Instead, you shift to your take on agency and claim it offers an exchange of some sort. But I don't think that's the case. To revisit your wannabe scholar character.....it seems you were okay with this goal because it fit with what you already had in mind, or already had a structure to deal with. And the outcome of how this would play out for the character was left to determine in play. I assume that they had a chance to actually succeed? Maybe I shouldn't.....was that the case?Do you think that your chosen style offers more agency than an adventure path? Do you think you are attacking people who enjoy adventure paths if you say so? I've played in adventure paths. They can be perfectly fun. It's not exactly my preferred mode of play, but I also know what to expect when someone says "I'm going to run Horde of the Dragon Queen, want to play?" It's not going to be a high agency game.Saying that your style doesn't offer as much player agency as another is not discounting the whole style of play. No style of play is a problem, excepting if the participants are not satisfied with it for some reason. A pure railroad may be fine for years for many players, or for a session or two for others. We all typically describe railroading as bad.....but for some folks, it may be just fine.</blockquote>

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