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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 9091493" data-attributes="member: 177">I find I agree a great deal with some of what Maxperson says just above, but I'll put it my own way...What you say in the quote also hands us a view as how it may less valuable to talk about which games have more/less agency than to talk about other aspects of agency.First and foremost, there is no measure of agency.  We can't say "Game X provides 35 Standard Agency Units, while Game Y only provides 17."  Subjective valuations are just dicey.Second, agency that the players don't want is of no value.  If the player does not want to engage in the behaviors through which a game provides agency, that agency might as well be considered not present in the game for them.  Indeed, that agency may even have a negative valence on the play for them.  Thus, the agency afforded by a given game is, in a practical sense, subjective.Third, and perhaps most importantly, how much agency is provided matters less than how players feel about their agency.  Ultimately, agency in and of itself is not a goal.  Players having a good time is the goal, right?Thus, the more/less question may not inform us of anything useful to us as GMs, or even as game designers, whereas the what, how, and why of various modes of agency likely will.  The latter is what we should be considering when trying to choose a game for our players, rather than the former, right?And, while some here are kind enough to say "that play you do is perfectly okay", trying to rank games by more/less agency can still look a lot like agency-machismo, or "agency-sizing", if you get my drift.  Culturally speaking, the idea that "more is better" follows such efforts around like a puppy, whether you like it or not, especially when it is only the advocates for agency are engaged in the effort, such that the "that play you do is perfectly okay" can seem like a condescension.</blockquote>

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