4) We roll on some tables and let Fate decide.
New thread!
Is "Fate Agency" A Thing?
4) We roll on some tables and let Fate decide.
We're norn going to talk about it.New thread!
Is "Fate Agency" A Thing?
We're norn going to talk about it.
Sure. There are many ways to handle this. Rolling on a table doesn’t really give anyone agency either except if someone needs to choose the table.4) We roll on some tables and let Fate decide.
Then We are just back to ‘who made the tables’4) We roll on some tables and let Fate decide.
Then We are just back to ‘who made the tables’
In no particular order:
There are RPGs that certainly fit your first parenthetical remark! But I don't think Apocalypse World is one of them. It's probably one of the most deliberate and careful of RPGs ever put together.
I've also heard things similar to your second parenthetical remark, but I personally don't see it. I think the writing in AW is, overall, crisper and clearer than DW, but I don't think DW is very ambiguous.
On the non-parenthetical part of your post: for the players, I would say not particular important at all, provided that they're not having a bad play experience as a result. That proviso matters, because if someone reports that game such-and-such sucks and then it turns out that they were ignoring the rules, well I have modest sympathy at best.
But for discussion of a RPG, I think it is helpful to talk about how it was written to be played. In particular, there is a very predominant approach to RPG discussion that assumes that all RPGing involves basically DL-ish procedures of play, with the only differences being minutiae of PC build and action resolution rules. While that assumption is being made, serious discussion about RPGing is pretty much impossible in my view.
If there is no agency to be found following a script, then no actor could ever make a choice that makes their performance of a part different from any other.
Yes. If player agency is maximized, it results in (# of players) different stories, unrelated to each other.
I congratulate your optimism here, but experience tells me the in-the-moment-advantage option will nearly always trump the long-term good of the game option if-when players* (no matter how experienced) are given that choice.
* - the exception being those (IME few) who have also done a fair bit of GMing and thus recognize that a long-term view even exists.