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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 9641923"><p>I am groggy and my min didn't clear, so I don't know how well I can state this, but for me the thing that has long struck me about RPGs since I first started playing was this ability of the player to say to the GM "I am going to do X" is what makes it a transformative medium. And the GMs ability to take that and turn it into just about anything, is what makes the medium limitless. It is what separates an RPG from a computer game, a movie or boardgame. It is what made me feel like  I was suddenly in a world or in a movie, but could actually affect the stuff around me, and move the 'plot'. In the hands of a bad GM, I don't think anyone disagrees, that can impact the agency this set up provides. But I don't think that is a problem of the arrangement itself. The arrangement is the thing that is what gave me so much agency when I first played RPGs. And I don't anyone disagrees that good rules and good principles can be very helpful for managing RPGs, even for enhancing agency. But both of these also have the potential to constrain agency by constraining the GM too much, and there is a balance to be struck there. There is also just a difference of philosophy around it. I don't think either camp wants less agency here. Some people just think it is better achieved by constraining the GM, while others think it is better achieved by not constraining the GM. Some of that is taste, some of that is personality, some of that is risk assessment (i.e. for less constrained GMing  there may be greater risk of a bad GM, but the reward that comes with a less constrained good GM is worth that risk). I don't think there is one right answer here. But one side calling the other delusional, doesn't advance the conversation.</p></blockquote><p></p>

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