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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 9551018" data-attributes="member: 177">Note: the nominal issue at hand is player agency, not character agency.The players chose to enter into a particular kind of conflict - and that choice puts some bounds around the stakes of the conflict.  That sounds like players exercising agency, to me.  "I choose to not have to worry about my character dying over this," sounds like a valid choice.Think of it this way - you walk into a casino.  The space has lots of different poker tables, each with different stakes - some tables have caps on individual bets, others have table stakes, and others have no limits.  You step up to a penny-ante table with table stakes, and a max $1 bet.  You have $1000 in your pocket.  That, by your own choice, you can't pull out that $1000 and slap it down on the table as a bet... are you not playing poker?  Is the only valid poker table the one with no limits?  Is the only valid poker establishment one that doesn't offer you different tables to choose from?  Is the choice of how much you are going to risk not part of poker?Which is fine, you like what you like.  But, what you, personally, primarily care about is only a subset of the overall genre, isn't it?  And, I think this shows us that the typical definitions are limited views of what "player agency" can be.  There are more ways than that for a player to exercise their agency.  I think in this example, Torchbearer is actually offering a third type outside the bounds of the typical definitions you give.Any time the players get to make a choice that impacts how play progresses, that's an exercise of player agency.</blockquote>

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