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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8014265" data-attributes="member: 42582">Suppose that the canvassed implication was really there: that wouldn't mean that hawkeyefan is wrong. It would tell us something about the constraints that arise from different setting conceits and associated mechanical procedures.It seems obvious that, in a D&D-type game a player whose character was unable to move (paralysed; speed 0; whatever other reason) and who had no magic to compensate would not be able to impact the fiction much at all, and so it's not counterintuitive that - in such a system - higher movement rate is one mechanical device for increasing player agency in certain respects. (To put it another way: in D&D, movement rates and distance are not mere colour. Contrast Prince Valiant, where there is fictional positioning but nothing like a D&D movement resolution system.)I've read some GMing advice that suggests start with a small constrained setting to make it easier to anticipate and adjudicate player actions. That advice seems to rest on a premise that a small constrained setting will reduce player agency over the fiction and hence make the GM's job easier.But in fact - and here I'd be curious if [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER] agrees - in the history of actual D&D play we tend to see that the growth of less dungeon-focused and more "living breathing world-focused play has reduced player agency. This is because GM discipine tends to reduce with the growth in the scope of the setting, and so an ability like teleportation that seems as if it could be agency-enhancing in fact becomes a device just for triggering new narration from the GM (When you arrive here's what you see . . .).TL;DR: You can't just look at a mechanical element, or at a bit of fictional content, and work out whether and how it affects player agency. You've got to look at the whole procedure of play of which it is a part.</blockquote>

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