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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kannik" data-source="post: 9843627" data-attributes="member: 984">I like make the distinction between player agency and character agency.  It can be totally fine to restrict character agency if the player agreed to it.  That might be what you mean by context of the fiction, but I like to use this distinction to be more clear.  Playing an adventure path?  Social contract by joining (the player agency) to follow along the adventure path and not choosing to bail and set up a flower shop.  Playing Mouse Guard?  You abide by the rules where you roll to resolve the scene at the start and narrate to the end of the scene with the result dictated by that one roll.  No matter the foundation, characters can do anything (and will likely anything, and take meandering paths, and etc) within any of those agreed upon social contract / fiction / contexts, which means that it may may well limit their implied "total agency" in order to stay within those agreed upon contexts.  But the players' agency wasn't nixed.  (Assuming they had an informed and free choice when joining the game/campaign.)  While it's not my preferred playstyle, if during the campaign setup it was known that This Thing Must Happen was going to happen, if the players agreed to it, then that's not necessarily kaiboshing their agency.  Like with the scene-based Mouseguard, there can be fun to create and play to find out how to get to that Must Happen point and how it relates to the characters and their relationships, values, foibles, transformations, falls from grace, and etc.  If you start a game without telling the players that this Thing Must Happen and try to force that, then yes, that is likely going to trample all over their agency to force that outcome.</blockquote>

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