Manbearcat
Legend
Agency is about my capacity to curate my experience toward a desired state and how my facility to realize my capabilities is marginalized or elevated by the relevant inputs of the endeavor in question. So when I go to the climbing gym, my agency is reduced by any of the following:
* The selection of boulders or faces to climb is preselected for me toward a reduced, undesirable array because any/all of traffic, infrastructure issues, poor route-setting, or an ongoing event.
* The person I'm climbing with brings a poor mental state or a mindset that is averse to being structured or goal-directed such that the scope of the outing is fundamentally changed.
* The obstacles are obscured from the ground such that I cannot assess and develop pre-climb beta (the route/sequence of moves and holds to top the climb).
* Someone, or a group of someones, is overtly directing people on beta (a major faux pas) unsolicited. This is basically "playing the game for you" at the all-important cognitive layer aspect of climbing.
* The hand and footholds are slippery and/or difficult to negotiate (particularly those that are inherently delicate propositions to start with) because they've been up too long and not cleaned.
* The route-setting was poor or mis-graded so normative techniques, distance management, sequencing are a cluster and the very important pre and in-situ cognitive layer of the climb becomes complicated/harmed.
* I'm injured, not recovered from last session, unslept, distracted, stressed or otherwise limited physically or mentally going into the session.
This assessment can be analogized pretty well to TTRPGing.
Forget whatever immersionist priorities one has for a moment. Look at the actual game layer of the game that you're running and playing. If the facility of your players to decide on premise of play, understand what best practices entail and operationalize them, set goals and play goal-forward, assess > orient > act with clarity and confidence is borne out in the experience of play (during play...not in the post-hoc rationalization of or reflection upon play), then you're good. If those things aren't borne out, then something is wrong with (i) GMing responsibilities, (ii) system's role and say in things, (iii) player responsibilities, (iv) the communication paradigm, or (v) the collective onboarding of the culture of play that is supposed to be the undertaking at the table.
If players didn't choose the play or didn't understand how the trajectory of play was realized, then the conversation needs to be had with them about those four things above, starting with that fourth bit. If everyone doesn't know the collective agenda for play ("what exactly are we doing and why?"), that is a good place to start. In these scenarios it seems to be very often the case that some participants aren't on the same page (and that includes the GM!) as to what it is you're all doing here. Then I'd work backwards to the communication paradigm. As a GM, is what you think you're communicating what the players are actually hearing and vice versa players to GM? Clarity of concepts in the gaming conversation are paramount (and that starts with the participants being on the same page with rules and concepts like "intent/goal" vs "action declaration" and how the game engine/resolution procedure in question interacts with such concepts). Are you (GM and players) procedurally saying enough...or too little...or the right things? Is the metachannel sufficiently open so people can engage with the game layer, can sufficiently acquaint themselves with what is happening to move the gamestate from here to there so that there isn't a misunderstanding and bad feels.
TLDR: Players choosing premise, players selecting their goals and playing goal-forward, and players understanding win cons/loss cons and how the gamestate works and moves will create maximal agency. The GM choosing premise for them, making it anywhere between arduous to impossible to play goal-forward, veiling or obscuring the gamestate machinery such that the cognitive loop of assess > orient > act is harmed....well that is going to deliver some plays firmly into "feels bad" territory.
Some players it won't. Some players are happy to have the premise of play chosen for them, they're happy to not have to play goal-forward and be responsible for the propulsion of play, and they don't care about how the gamestate moves. Passive consumption of a story, a tour of a compelling setting, some curated power fantasy while they engage in performative theatrics and self-insert, various ephemera like visuals, maps, some dice rolled...they're good.
Some players don't know the rules, don't know or observe best practices, don't listen well, don't play well others, or perhaps they even violate social expectations. And they might not take responsibility.
So make sure you know what kind of game you're promoting and playing and make sure the players know that as well. And everyone takes responsibility for their part. From the sounds of it, the excerpt in the lead post appears to be a very traditional game with traditional game problems stemming from (a) mismatch of expectations (of premise of play and of procedures to resolve gamestates) and (b) at least one player feeling like they're working from an information deficit while the GM feels like the game is an information-rich environment. Most laments (whether you're a new GM or an old GM) when running or playing a traditional game takes this shape. The only way to resolve that is by brutal self (self here meaning every participant and the game itself) assessment and confrontation with the shortcomings that led to the "bad feels." Again, my recommendation when performing the assessment is to remove immersionist priorities from the dynamics of play because they'll only cloud the post-mortem. Where did things go wrong when it comes to expectation mismatch, where did things go wrong when it comes to the question of "why was the gamestate here in the first place and how did it move from to this undesirable state later," where did the talkey-talk go wrong to facilitate this mismatch and misunderstanding in the first place, did the system fail us or did we fail it (because either it isn't fit for purpose or we didn't apply it correctly)?
* The selection of boulders or faces to climb is preselected for me toward a reduced, undesirable array because any/all of traffic, infrastructure issues, poor route-setting, or an ongoing event.
* The person I'm climbing with brings a poor mental state or a mindset that is averse to being structured or goal-directed such that the scope of the outing is fundamentally changed.
* The obstacles are obscured from the ground such that I cannot assess and develop pre-climb beta (the route/sequence of moves and holds to top the climb).
* Someone, or a group of someones, is overtly directing people on beta (a major faux pas) unsolicited. This is basically "playing the game for you" at the all-important cognitive layer aspect of climbing.
* The hand and footholds are slippery and/or difficult to negotiate (particularly those that are inherently delicate propositions to start with) because they've been up too long and not cleaned.
* The route-setting was poor or mis-graded so normative techniques, distance management, sequencing are a cluster and the very important pre and in-situ cognitive layer of the climb becomes complicated/harmed.
* I'm injured, not recovered from last session, unslept, distracted, stressed or otherwise limited physically or mentally going into the session.
This assessment can be analogized pretty well to TTRPGing.
Forget whatever immersionist priorities one has for a moment. Look at the actual game layer of the game that you're running and playing. If the facility of your players to decide on premise of play, understand what best practices entail and operationalize them, set goals and play goal-forward, assess > orient > act with clarity and confidence is borne out in the experience of play (during play...not in the post-hoc rationalization of or reflection upon play), then you're good. If those things aren't borne out, then something is wrong with (i) GMing responsibilities, (ii) system's role and say in things, (iii) player responsibilities, (iv) the communication paradigm, or (v) the collective onboarding of the culture of play that is supposed to be the undertaking at the table.
If players didn't choose the play or didn't understand how the trajectory of play was realized, then the conversation needs to be had with them about those four things above, starting with that fourth bit. If everyone doesn't know the collective agenda for play ("what exactly are we doing and why?"), that is a good place to start. In these scenarios it seems to be very often the case that some participants aren't on the same page (and that includes the GM!) as to what it is you're all doing here. Then I'd work backwards to the communication paradigm. As a GM, is what you think you're communicating what the players are actually hearing and vice versa players to GM? Clarity of concepts in the gaming conversation are paramount (and that starts with the participants being on the same page with rules and concepts like "intent/goal" vs "action declaration" and how the game engine/resolution procedure in question interacts with such concepts). Are you (GM and players) procedurally saying enough...or too little...or the right things? Is the metachannel sufficiently open so people can engage with the game layer, can sufficiently acquaint themselves with what is happening to move the gamestate from here to there so that there isn't a misunderstanding and bad feels.
TLDR: Players choosing premise, players selecting their goals and playing goal-forward, and players understanding win cons/loss cons and how the gamestate works and moves will create maximal agency. The GM choosing premise for them, making it anywhere between arduous to impossible to play goal-forward, veiling or obscuring the gamestate machinery such that the cognitive loop of assess > orient > act is harmed....well that is going to deliver some plays firmly into "feels bad" territory.
Some players it won't. Some players are happy to have the premise of play chosen for them, they're happy to not have to play goal-forward and be responsible for the propulsion of play, and they don't care about how the gamestate moves. Passive consumption of a story, a tour of a compelling setting, some curated power fantasy while they engage in performative theatrics and self-insert, various ephemera like visuals, maps, some dice rolled...they're good.
Some players don't know the rules, don't know or observe best practices, don't listen well, don't play well others, or perhaps they even violate social expectations. And they might not take responsibility.
So make sure you know what kind of game you're promoting and playing and make sure the players know that as well. And everyone takes responsibility for their part. From the sounds of it, the excerpt in the lead post appears to be a very traditional game with traditional game problems stemming from (a) mismatch of expectations (of premise of play and of procedures to resolve gamestates) and (b) at least one player feeling like they're working from an information deficit while the GM feels like the game is an information-rich environment. Most laments (whether you're a new GM or an old GM) when running or playing a traditional game takes this shape. The only way to resolve that is by brutal self (self here meaning every participant and the game itself) assessment and confrontation with the shortcomings that led to the "bad feels." Again, my recommendation when performing the assessment is to remove immersionist priorities from the dynamics of play because they'll only cloud the post-mortem. Where did things go wrong when it comes to expectation mismatch, where did things go wrong when it comes to the question of "why was the gamestate here in the first place and how did it move from to this undesirable state later," where did the talkey-talk go wrong to facilitate this mismatch and misunderstanding in the first place, did the system fail us or did we fail it (because either it isn't fit for purpose or we didn't apply it correctly)?