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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 8012596" data-attributes="member: 16586">Broadly there is no such thing as general agency. You have agency over something - the ability to exert control over something. To have agency over content of the fiction means that I meaningfully have the ability to gain a measure of control. It does not mean I presently have control, only that through play I have the ability to exert control. Agency is almost never complete, almost always shared and often has limitations. In roleplaying games fictional positioning, assumed play expectations, assumed GMing principles, the individual boundaries of group members, and the rules of the game are all common limiters.One mistake we often make in discussions of all sorts is assuming that because something is good in small or moderate proportions that it is good in large or total proportions. There are very good reasons to place limits on the agency of all participants (including the GM). Those reasons and those limitations are going to be different from game to game. Some will come from the text and some will come from the social environment.This is why I find some modern mainstream texts irksome. They focus only on rights and authority, but never on limitations and responsibilities. If you take a look at Moldvay or even the First Edition DMG the game will instruct the GM. With authority it imparts responsibility. It even has back end rules you are expected to follow. It places limits on your agency so that players may also have some agency over the fiction. These things do not necessarily have to come from action resolution rules that impart agency directly. It come from expectations placed on the participants.In a situation where there is a lack of enumerated principles and the GM has extraordinary latitude player agency is limited to what that GM allows. That might be a great deal. It might be barely at all. A player has no meaningful way to expect their actions are making a meaningful impact.</blockquote>

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