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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9121320" data-attributes="member: 42582">If player agency= the players' choice prompts the GM to say something different from what they might otherwise have said, then almost any action resolution procedure is consistent with player agency!EDIT:Suppose the players' choice matters in the sense that, depending on what they choose, the GM will say X or will say Y. It does not follow that the players have agency in any very thick sense.Consider, for instance, an example of the players looking for something. Suppose that the players know that this thing is in a particular house, but not where. And so they start a search of the house applying standard D&amp;D map-and-key rules. Depending whether they get lucky and choose the right place first, or whether they get unlucky and choose the right place last, they may have an easy or a hard time of it. But this doesn't look like it has much to do with agency. It's mere luck.That's why classic D&amp;D has spells like Detect Magic, Locate Object etc - these give the players the ability to acquire the knowledge to make agential decisions, of how to solve the optimisation problem of getting the thing that's in the house with the least risk/cost (however that is to be measured in the particular context of play).The ranges of those spells also tell us something about the imaginary architectural contexts they were supposed to be used in, when they were invented.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 9121320, member: 42582"] If player agency= [I]the players' choice prompts the GM to say something different from what they might otherwise have said[/I], then almost any action resolution procedure is consistent with player agency! EDIT: Suppose the players' choice matters in the sense that, depending on what they choose, the GM will say X or will say Y. It does not follow that the players have agency in any very thick sense. Consider, for instance, an example of the players looking for something. Suppose that the players know that this thing is in a particular house, but not where. And so they start a search of the house applying standard D&D map-and-key rules. Depending whether they get lucky and choose the right place first, or whether they get unlucky and choose the right place last, they may have an easy or a hard time of it. But this doesn't look like it has much to do with agency. It's mere luck. That's why classic D&D has spells like Detect Magic, Locate Object etc - these give the players the ability to acquire the knowledge to make agential decisions, of how to solve the optimisation problem of getting the thing that's in the house with the least risk/cost (however that is to be measured in the particular context of play). The ranges of those spells also tell us something about the imaginary architectural contexts they were supposed to be used in, when they were invented. [/QUOTE]

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