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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9100382" data-attributes="member: 71699">To illustrate that, think about this PbtA moveDefendWhen you stand in defense of a person, item, or location under attack, roll+Con.✴On a 10+, hold 3.✴On a 7–9, hold 1.As long as you stand in defense, when you or the thing you defend is attacked you may spend hold, 1 for 1, to choose an option:• Redirect an attack from the thing you defend to yourself• Halve the attack’s effect or damage• Open up the attacker to an ally giving that ally +1 forward against the attacker• Deal damage to the attacker equal to your levelI quite like the definition that "agency in a RPG is about capacity to influence the outcomes of play." Although I suspect that captures only one (important) facet. Running with it, how might I increase agency for Defend? A first step could be pick, don't roll. The capacity of a player to influence those outcomes depends on the dice being constrained, so let's just turn them to the numbers we  want.High-agency DefendWhen you stand in defense of a person, item, or location under attack, hold 3.As long as you stand in defense, when you or the thing you defend is attacked you may spend hold, 1 for 1, to choose an option:• Redirect an attack from the thing you defend to yourself• Halve the attack’s effect or damage• Open up the attacker to an ally giving that ally +1 forward against the attacker• Deal damage to the attacker equal to your levelIn high-agency, I just pick the best outcome (10+), but why limit myself to 3? Why not an even higher agency defend, that'd be better... right?Higher-agency DefendWhen you stand in defense of a person, item, or location under attack, as long as you stand in defense, when you or the thing you defend is attacked you may choose any of the following options, as many times as you like:• Redirect an attack from the thing you defend to yourself• Halve the attack’s effect or damage• Open up the attacker to an ally giving that ally +1 forward against the attacker• Deal damage to the attacker equal to your levelBut there is still crucial lack of agency here: who's deciding that a person, item or location is under attack? Can't I just make my outcome an erasure of the attack itself!?Even-higher-agency DefendWhen you stand in defense of a person, item, or location under attack, say that it's not under attack and can't be attacked, and erase the attacker(s) from your narrative.And so on. If you're attentive enough, you can see that Defend involves a long list of suspensions of agency to work as it does in DW. In constructing a game, it's not about suspending more or less agency: the distinct play is crafted through suspension of agencies in exactly the right way. My working hypothesis is that when folk speak about having more agency, they have an internal list of outcomes and ways to achieve outcomes that they care about (prelusory goals), and are making the perfectly reasonable complaint that the game (lusory means) doesn't suspend agencies in exactly the right way to match their list. It's therefore accurate to describe it as having (ad arguendo) low-ludic-agency, because the whole point of ludic-agency is to craft the game you want to play. Where they are inaccurate is in attempts to transfer that judgement to other lists that wouldn't benefit from adding the agencies they want! Because changing agencies, changes the game.That should be utterly clear, but it bears repeating: changing agencies results in changing the game. You're not playing the same game with more agency, you're playing a different game.</blockquote>

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