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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 9092891" data-attributes="member: 6696971">I don't think we can because the relationship of agency and success rate is multivariate and dependent upon several variables (which is what I was trying to illustrate).  And each of those variables are (or at least might be) multidimensional.Here is an easy historical lament that you hear from players of martial characters talking about noncombat resolution (the lament is about their lack of agency in these situations):* Martial character has a noncombat suite of abilities that lets them average 85 % success rate.  Pretty high, right?* While across a large distribution of tests, they sit at 85 %, target numbers can fluctuate pretty significantly to reduce individual test success rate dramatically (perhaps down to 55 %).* Player doesn't know the target number and/or doesn't know how it might be derived.* Failure is hard failure; whiffing and kersplatting.  And hard failure can mean the situation has gone sideways if the GM says/feels its gone sideways.* Unfortunately, the martial PC player doesn't know and can't well-project how many tests they're going to have to successfully resolve in any given situation.  Might be 3, might be 5.  5 suddenly means "things going totally sideways" is absolutely in play.  Across the course of two conflicts?  Its basically a sure thing.* The martial PC player doesn't have a suite of widgets/handles/resources to draw upon to discretionally amplify their odds of success based on their analysis/projection of the unfolding situation/consequence-suite in front of them.* There is absolutely 0 incentive for failure.  Failure is all bad, all the time.  No "failure minigame" to power advancement or power Downtime (or whatever).* GM doesn't telegraph/foreground consequences particularly well so the player isn't well-informed on their potential suite of consequences based on their approach to overcome the obstacle and ability/skill deployed.You add all of that up and/or you take several key components of that together?  Despite that high success rate on any given test, you are in a relatively information poor environment + a resource martialing/management-poor environment + situation sideways stakes on all tests + all the incentive structures pointing in one direction (succeed or potentially sideways).EDIT - Addendum.Ok, now lets consider all of the above EXCEPT...the player of the martial character, through intricate and complex PC build interactions, generate action resolution numbers that consistently overwhelm the mathematical foundation of the system.  100 % all day long. What now?  Is that "more agency?"  What I would say about that paradigm is follows:* The entirety of "agency" expressed in the proposed game engine and in the proposed play is in "deck-building."  Its all pre-play.  Can you generate a character, before play, that overwhelms the game's numerical chassis?* Ok so what happens during play?  Well, during actually play, we are now existing in a 0 agency environment.  Decision-tree management, resource management, hard decisions where you struggle to fight for what you believe/prioritize ethos quandries, etc etc...irrelevant; kaput.  All matters of agency have been settled before play even began.So, despite the ability to generate 100 % success rate in action resolution because of the dynamics of intricate character building (pre-play), actual table time, actual play features no agency whatsoever.  I think most people would call this a broken game or degenerate CharOps or something.</blockquote>

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