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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FrogReaver" data-source="post: 8013848" data-attributes="member: 6795602">Not sure I would phrase it that way, but seems close enough. But you made a distinction between rules and houserules/social contracts.  If a game existed that banned Evil PCs via rules or romance via rules would you also view that as impacting player agency?I think that being a player implies that you are playing a game.  A game implies there are legal moves and potentially illegal moves.  A player cannot play a game without accepting the legal and illegal moves.  As such a player of a game only has agency inside the domain of the games legal moves because that is what he has accepted.  Having any agency outside those legal moves would be 'cheating'. I mean you could attempt to make the case that the mere existence of illegal moves in a game always constrains player agency but in that case it would apply to any such rule - even ones about genre appropriateness, about action resolution mechanics, about fairness, about the player getting to place the treasure in the Dungeon.  If we really want to say that we can but I think that essentially makes player agency a worthless concept.  What matters at that point isn't how much player agency or how little as it's neither good nor bad, it just 'is'.  What matters at that point is what specific types of moves the game makes legal and illegal.Having to engage with a rule at every turn is one reason to dislike such a rule.  I'm not seeing you make a clear connection from that to player agency.</blockquote>

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