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<blockquote data-quote="aramis erak" data-source="post: 7919308" data-attributes="member: 6779310">Because many of us realize that the agency you claim is in older games is often an illusion in the game as played. If one accepts Gygax Rule 0 (The GM is always right, and can mod rules on a whim), your agency ends wherever the GM decides, including the potential of telling you how your character feels about something! The GM I had the least agency as a player under was running AD&amp;D 2E. Second worst was AD&amp;D 1E.The game I had the most agency as a player under was Fate... But I was also able to powergame the rules to make for a strong narrative situation where I wasn't at risk, but was making the tank-type character wipe the walls with the big bad....&nbsp; I was truly able to affect the story state more as a player in that game than any time I wasn't GMing.D&amp;D game rules prior to 3E explicitly give the GM the power to change the rules on the fly for pretty much any reason. Sane DM's don't... they pick a subset, superset, or superset of a subset of the rules, and stick to them, because player agency requires knowing enough to make informed decisions, and a GM willing to let the player have some.In, say, Mouse Guard...Yes, I give up some agency by writing the belief, &quot;I will do the underhanded if it is required for the common good.&quot; I'm saying, &quot;This is a conflict I want to explore&quot; - if the GM agrees, great. If not, I can still use it to nerf myself in the GM phase, so I have more freedom (more rolls I get to make) in the player phase...The other thing is that most of the more narrativist games do is explicitly deny revision on the fly from GM prerogatives... many Fate flavors are pretty clear that only the group as a whole gets to change rules. Many in fact also limit a lot of other traditional GM prerogatives that actually thus deny the GM the authority to do certain things.What a ruleset cannot do is force the GM to follow it, but I know that I'd rather not play if the GM isn't using a cogent and clear set of rules.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="aramis erak, post: 7919308, member: 6779310"] Because many of us realize that the agency you claim is in older games is often an illusion in the game as played. If one accepts Gygax Rule 0 (The GM is always right, and can mod rules on a whim), your agency ends wherever the GM decides, [I]including the potential of telling you how your character feels about something![/I] The GM I had the least agency as a player under was running AD&D 2E. Second worst was AD&D 1E. The game I had the most agency as a player under was Fate... But I was also able to powergame the rules to make for a strong narrative situation where I wasn't at risk, but was making the tank-type character wipe the walls with the big bad.... I was truly able to affect the story state more as a player in that game than any time I wasn't GMing. D&D game rules prior to 3E explicitly give the GM the power to change the rules on the fly for pretty much any reason. Sane DM's don't... they pick a subset, superset, or superset of a subset of the rules, and stick to them, because player agency requires knowing enough to make informed decisions, and a GM willing to let the player have some. In, say, Mouse Guard... Yes, I give up some agency by writing the belief, "I will do the underhanded if it is required for the common good." I'm saying, "This is a conflict I want to explore" - if the GM agrees, great. If not, I can still use it to nerf myself in the GM phase, so I have more freedom (more rolls I get to make) in the player phase... The other thing is that most of the more narrativist games do is explicitly deny revision on the fly from GM prerogatives... many Fate flavors are pretty clear that only the group as a whole gets to change rules. Many in fact also limit a lot of other traditional GM prerogatives that actually thus deny the GM the authority to do certain things. What a ruleset cannot do is force the GM to follow it, but I know that I'd rather not play if the GM isn't using a cogent and clear set of rules. [/QUOTE]

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