I GMed a session of Torchbearer yesterday. I made 8 rolls on random tables:I don't think that random tables inherently rob players of agency. They are arguably a form of illusionism
*Town Event roll
*Weather roll x2
*Trouble on the Road roll x2
*Camp Event roll x2
*Loot Table 1 (which sent me to the Gear subtable, which in turn sent me to the Vessels subtable)
*Weather roll x2
*Trouble on the Road roll x2
*Camp Event roll x2
*Loot Table 1 (which sent me to the Gear subtable, which in turn sent me to the Vessels subtable)
There was no illusionism. Each time I rolled on the table, it was in accordance with the relevant rules (for Town Phase, Journeying and Camp Phase, and for Loot), I told the players I was rolling, I applied the appropriate modifiers (which I explained to the players), I told them the result of the roll (and some probably could see my dice).
In every case but one, I then read the appropriate result off the table in question. We then applied the result as made sense given the established fiction; anyone who is interested can read the details and context here.
The one exception to the first sentence of the previous paragraph was the Loot roll - I didn't tell them what the outcome was until a few minutes later, when the PCs arrived at the Tower from which they had driven off the bandits, to see the water barrel that the bandits had left behind. At that point, I told the players that the barrel was their loot.
This thread is in RPG general. Obviously what you say here isn't true of many RPGs. Eg in the Torchbearer session I mentioned just above the PCs were ambushed by bandits trying to drive them off; but I lost the conflict, with no compromise owed to the players, and so the PCs drove off the ambushing bandits. Having decided to frame a bandit ambush, I did not then get to decide what happens next without regard to the conflict resolution rules.The referee controls literally everything except the PCs, so saying the referee has no agency is a real WTF moment.