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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 9642392" data-attributes="member: 177">It can be.At a given table, agency ought to be about the forms of agency those players care about.Yeah, well, I haven't agreed with the OP myself.  Assertion in an OP does not equate to truth.Inviolable rules may be an excellent way to achieve agency for many people.I, personally, have never seen a rule in a game book that is "inviolable".  Tabletop games in general have no modes of enforcement.  Humans can always step outside of game rules, if they want.Hold on a second.Just a sentence before, you were saying "essential".Now, it is that a game is "not one that is all that concerned".Which leaves the idea that whether or not the game is concerned with it, agency may exist regardless...Are we trying to determine if a game is "concerned with" agency, or whether agency is actually present in play?  Because those are two very different questions!  The latter question will include not just the game rules, but also player and GM behaviors that enhance, or suppress, agency.Meaningful, informed choices are one form of agency, but, to use your own idea from earlier - they are not the only form of agency.As an example - if the GM, at the end of a session, asks the players on the content of B-plots they'd like to see, and includes such elements in the adventure next time around, that's a behavior that supports player agency, even if there is no inviolable rule in the book that the GM must ask for such input.</blockquote>

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