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Message: <blockquote data-quote="overgeeked" data-source="post: 8661020" data-attributes="member: 86653">I’ve played and run Dungeon World, World of Dungeons, Monster of the Week, Masks, Spirit of ’77, Zombie World, and Thirsty Sword Lesbians. Also backed that last one on Kickstarter. Along with playing and running various hacks like World of Secrets. Generally no, PbtA games don’t violate player agency. But sometimes they do…in pretty dramatic fashion. And not because of mind control or spells. Because of the moves, player and GM. It’s also in the difference between conflict resolution and task resolution.When a PC fails, rolls 6-/2d6, the GM makes a move, generally a hard move but it’s the GM’s choice. But, importantly, the consequences are not limited to the PC who failed the roll, which is fine, but the GM moves often represent sequences of events rather than singular isolated events. The problem is there. In that sequence the PCs should have agency…but they don’t.For example, in Masks two moves are “bring them together” and “capture someone.” Spirit of ’77 has “separate them” and “take away their stuff.” Thirsty Sword Lesbians has “create misunderstandings and doubt about attachments.”Unless those moves involve instant teleportation or time travel or superspeed or mind control, those are generally sequences of events that the PCs should have agency during. It’s this skipping over the sequences of events and collapsing them into a single press of the button that violates player agency. This also pops up in aggressive scene framing. Actions the PCs should have had control over are skipped over to cut to the meat of scenes. To be fair, a lot of times this is fine and is often used in other games as a time saver, but I’ve seen more players balk at the aggressive scene framing in PbtA games than any other.</blockquote>

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