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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 9121526" data-attributes="member: 7026594">Sort of, I guess would be my answer.Player agency means the ability to affect and change the game world.  To make meaningful choices.  Often during a game players are working with incomplete information, sometimes without any at all.  Given the choice of a T intersection in a dungeon with nothing to distinguish between the alternatives, the choice between them is arbitrary, not informed, right?  And sometimes such choices will crop up in games- where the PCs have no particular data to distinguish between the options.  These are situations where agency is relatively low, but still not necessarily absent.  If, for example, they have the option to turn back, or to spend resources on an Augury spell, or send a stealthy scout ahead down one or both passages to GAIN further info, they certainly still have some agency!Going back to your random tables of wilderness encounters, I would say that without any prior info about the potential contents of the tables, agency is again relatively low.  But especially if they have ways to GAIN further info, such as by seeking out rumors, asking local merchants or caravan guards who travel those roads, then again, agency exists.  In such a case, I would be likely to give the players some info about the random tables, either out of game or diegetically.  Say the players find and question some caravan guards about the more dangerous route.  And I know that the three most common results on the table (6,7,8 on a 2d6 table, for example) are organized Orc raiding parties, small groups of trolls, and a band of Ogre brigards, the guards could tell the PCs about these relatively common threats.  As well as maybe mentioning that a black dragon has been seen occasionally (it's a 12 on the table, but it's scary enough that everyone remembers hearing about sightings).  Knowing about these threats the PCs could choose to keep Sleep and Fireball prepared, and maybe check town for potions or scrolls of Acid Resistance just in case.And if there's any info at all, that's still agency because it's something to go on, some data on which to base a meaningful decision.  In the specific example you gave (one road is half the travel time but double the chance of encounters) the difference is relatively small all other factors being equal, but if one is expected to take a week and get them there in time for the coronation in nine days (say) and the other is expected to take two weeks... well, just knowing that is enough to make the fast road a meaningfully superior choice if their priority is getting there in time for the coronation.   Though in this specific example the slow road isn't meaningfully superior if their priority is just to get there alive, due to the math of the particular specifics you gave.</blockquote>

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