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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8014662" data-attributes="member: 16814">Separate response for your question as I don't want to mix the two thoughts.It depends on the D&D.  4e does dramatic agency pretty well.  Moldvoy Basic does delve agency very well.  5e mixes these up a lot, so agency is more up to the individual GM/table than particularly encouraged by the ruleset.  Other editions seem to follow this model as well.Fundamentally, D&D has an identity problem.  I think that's why it's so successful -- it's moldable to many approaches so it's playable by many tables.  I don't think it bakes in agency very much at all so much as leaves it up to the individual tables to find a GMing method that works for them.  I know that how I run 5e is pretty different from a number of posters, and agency, therefore, resides in different places and amounts accordingly.  I don't see that as a strength of D&D, honestly, because it does allow for so many bad options to exist (we all read the stories of play spiraling off, the OP is a modest example).  I like it anyway because it's allowed me to alter how I approach 5e to 1) better use the system as it is presented in the rules and 2) make the minimum changes necessary to achieve my style of play.  And, those changes are minimal.  I'd say I have a large amount of dramatic agency for players in my game, but much less delve agency.  I do this by limiting my prep to challenging situations and not solutions.  Others have different preferences and so do different things and have different types and quantities of agency.</blockquote>

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