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Message: <blockquote data-quote="prabe" data-source="post: 8014307" data-attributes="member: 7016699">I believe I have located at least one locus of the failure to communicate, here. Player agency (as I've been trying to use it consistently) is about the players making decisions for or through their characters, which choices alter the fictional state. So player agency isn't involved in the action of swimming across the river so much as in the decision to do so. If the fictional state doesn't change--if the encounters are the same whether or not the river is swum, if the same results attain--then there's no player agency involved, even if the action (swimming across the river) is resolved. When I say "THIS IS WHERE THE AGENCY HAPPENS" I mean in the decision to swim across the river, not as much in the declaration of the action.I know I use the term differently than you; I'm hoping that you can see what I mean, and why I see things like "The DM Decides" (as a method of action resolution) as I do--as not impinging on player agency as I use the term.I don't see any deep fundamental difference between the procedure you describe and the one I describe, if you leave out any assertions about where player agency comes into play. You share some of the curation/decision-making around the table, which almost certainly works at your table, for the games you play, the way you run them. Because I have in the past had a hard time with coherence when I did that, I don't. It's a preference, and I am not convinced your approach is objectively wrong--just wrong for me.I said:This may be another locus of our failure to communicate, here. I believe that fiction emerges from play; that may sound to you as though I believe it to be self-actualizing (sorry for the American spelling, there). I do believe that established facts in the fiction do exert causal power--I suspect that you do, too.That depends. In the instance of tugboats we have concensus reality to fall back on--the real-world capabilities of tugboats are easily researched, though converting those to game mechanics may take some work. In the instance of setting-elements in a game world, we have published materials if we're running those; we have the GM's notes if it's a homebrew adventure; we have common sense (or an unreasonable facsimile thereof) if something is not covered in the notes or published material--the GM exercises judgment (possibly in consultation with the table, the way you describe your tables at least sometimes operating, which I'll say again isn't something I'm trying to argue against).Any of those would seem as though they'd be part of the fictional state. If player agency (in either the definition you've been using or in mine, I think) is about changing the fictional state, it must be defined before it can be change; that's what notes and prep and GM judgment (and real-world knowledge) are for. Without a fictional state to change, there is nothing to choose, there is nothing to change, and there can be no player agency.</blockquote>

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