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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9084293" data-attributes="member: 42582">As I posted upthread, I think the appropriate verb is thinks or believes or imagines, not wants.That is, to say that conditions in the campaign resulted in it is just a needlessly obscure way of saying that the GM believed that this is what would happen, given everything else the GM believes about the imaginary world of the game.The GM made all those decisions - about what &quot;directly results&quot; from things done 7 sessions ago, about the 2 month absence, about what the players (and PCs?) have or haven't learned. So who else's &quot;fault&quot; would it be?Player agency refers to the agency that the player enjoys in the play of the game. The play of a RPG is about establishing a shared fiction. Hence, the agency of a RPG player is all about their capacity to establish the shared fiction. The canonical way of doing that - given the player/GM role divide that is mainstream for RPGs - is via action declarations for their PCs.The more the GM decides what happens as a result of declared actions - eg as is being discussed in the Noble case, the eggs case, etc - then the less the player is establishing fiction and the more the GM is doing so. (I'm not saying that agency over the fiction must be strictly zero sum, but in the particular examples being discussed there is a pretty clear zero-sum structure.)If the player chooses to go to the City of Brass, then they have chosen to be among the Efreet, including the Efreet nobles. They may have further beliefs about what this means for the ability of their Noble PC to seek and be granted audiences. All of this is relevant to what sorts of decisions by the GM would affirm, or thwart, the player's agency.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 9084293, member: 42582"] As I posted upthread, I think the appropriate verb is [I]thinks[/I] or [I]believes[/I] or [I]imagines[/I], not [I]wants[/I]. That is, to say that [I]conditions in the campaign resulted in it[/I] is just a needlessly obscure way of saying that [I]the GM believed that this is what would happen, given everything else the GM believes about the imaginary world of the game[/I]. The GM made all those decisions - about what "directly results" from things done 7 sessions ago, about the 2 month absence, about what the players (and PCs?) have or haven't learned. So who else's "fault" would it be? [I]Player agency[/I] refers to the agency that the player enjoys in the play of the game. The play of a RPG is about establishing a shared fiction. Hence, the agency of a RPG player is all about their capacity to establish the shared fiction. The canonical way of doing that - given the player/GM role divide that is mainstream for RPGs - is via action declarations for their PCs. The more the GM decides what happens as a result of declared actions - eg as is being discussed in the Noble case, the eggs case, etc - then the less the player is establishing fiction and the more the GM is doing so. (I'm not saying that agency over the fiction must be strictly zero sum, but in the particular examples being discussed there is a pretty clear zero-sum structure.) If the player chooses to go to the City of Brass, then they have chosen to be among the Efreet, including the Efreet nobles. They may have further beliefs about what this means for the ability of their Noble PC to seek and be granted audiences. All of this is relevant to what sorts of decisions by the GM would affirm, or thwart, the player's agency. [/QUOTE]

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