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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Oofta" data-source="post: 9091436" data-attributes="member: 6801845">First, I don't think agency is inherently good or bad.  I will also admit that if your group is playing a module you're likely to have less freedom of choice.  I'm playing Curse of Strahd and even though the lanes are quite wide, it's still a linear adventure.  On the other hand, agency is limited in real life.  We don't get to know outcomes of every decision perfectly even when we're successful. I do not think D&D grants the most agency of any possible game.  I think different games offer different experiences and different types of agency.  I enjoy life even if I could wish for more perfect knowledge and control of outcomes.  Different games have different types of agency and in many ways there just is no direct comparison.  People have been debating what agency means as long as we've been able to form the concept.However that does not mean that players automatically have incredibly low agency in D&D.  It depends on what the group enjoys, what the goals of play are, what they want out of the game. A lot of people simply aren't particularly spontaneously creative and feel put on the spot if they need to come up with ideas extemporaneously.  They aren't comfortable with ad-libbing or choosing directions, especially not on the fly.  For a lot of people the type of agency supported by other games would be incredibly stressful and make the game far less enjoyable.I doubt many people want a railroad (and true railroads are vanishingly rare), but a lot of people? A lot of people just want to relax, tell bad jokes and puns, sit back and roll some dice to relieve the stress of the world.  So when people say games are railroads unless they use Burning Wheel techniques or that D&D automatically always has very low agency?  When they put any game that players limited scope of control in an incredibly negative light?  That's what I have a problem with.</blockquote>

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