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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8016256" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Let me ask you this.Say you're a skilled Magic the Gathering player and you're playing a complex deck with lots of interactions that generally has a 40 % win rate (therefore 60 % loss rate) across the population distribution of games against a less complex deck that is fairly straight-forward deck.  However, extremely skilled deployment of your deck (and you're well toward the tail of the population distribution of skilled MtG players) can increase that win rate by up to 33 % (putting you, personally, a bit north of a 50 % win rate in the same scenario).If, before play, someone is privy to (a) both deck archetypes being deployed (even though neither player is aware yet) and (b) the orthodox win/loss rate between these two decks AND that someone is vested with the authority to unilaterally decide that the less complex, higher win rate deck wins before initial hands are even drawn and a single card is played......do you find that there is no difference in both actual agency between that and actually playing it and perceived agency by the participants (especially the player of the complex deck)?We've talked a lot about actual agency, but perceived agency is also enormously important (particularly as moments of play aggregate toward a narrative) in TTRPGs.[HR][/HR]Secondarily, but related...I think you're significantly underselling the agency-significance of all of the other aspects of system (and how they perpetuate agency) that go into the "roll the dice" portion of "say yes, or roll the dice" vs merely "GM decides."There are many examples from enumerable systems, but lets just stick to Blades because that is one that a lot of commenters have some level of familiarity.A Lurk (Rogue archetype) PC has the following:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Special Ability - Shadow:  Expend a use of your Special Armor to (a) Resist a Consequence from Detection or Security Measures or (b) Push yourself for a feat of Athletics or Stealth.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">3 Dots in Prowess (the physical "saving throw" of Blades to resist consequences - so roll 3d when resisting a physical complication).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">2 Dots in Prowl (so roll 2d when you traverse skillfully and quietly).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Stress economy (including all of the agency in manipulating/leveraging/mitigating it...or not).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The ability to Push, accept a Devil's Bargain, deploy a Flashback and/or receive a Setup or Assist move from a Crew member if the fictional positioning warrants it.</li> </ul>They're on a Stealth Score that features 2 Competing Clocks.  If the Mission Clock is filled up before the "Sound the Alarm" Clock is filled up, they succeed at the Score.  If not, they may still succeed at the score, but their ability to do so becomes hugely threatened and the knock-on fallout accrued will threaten them for a while to come (more Heat which feeds back into the system, likely a Clock with a faction that has to be resolved in Downtime, other Complications that can emerge through play such as increased Stress, Trauma, Harm etc, etc).At any point in the above scenario where the Lurk has the ability to (a) deploy Shadow to Push himself for a feat of Athletics (thereby not eating the stress for an extra 1d), now giving him 3d, is positioned to have an ally perform a Setup to change the Lurk's Position from Risky to Controlled (perhaps its a Whisper who manipulates the Ghost Field to distract a Sniper positioned in a Lookout tower in an overwatch position above the courtyard), and can then Resist any Consequence on a 4/5 or 1-3 result (now reduced due to the Setup move) with that beefy 3d from Prowess....OR they can use Shadow again (if they have another box of Special Armor) to resist it.Or...they can deploy a Flashback.And remember...all of this tech is player-facing so the GM doesn't get to hide DCs or procedures (which can allow them to use covert Force).Is it really your position that the above scenario (which, again, I can use any number of player-facing systems for this), with all of the intricacies of its decision-tree and dice rolling, that said dice rolling is yields just as much/little agency/capriciousness/whim as an overwhelmingly GM-facing, GM-decides approach?</blockquote>

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