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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9106455" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Okay! Yes! I agree that that is agency. It is also, as you say, before actually playing. If the player is only allowed to do this sort of thing while not actually playing, I don't see that as clearing the bar for "player agency." It's not part of play. It certainly influences future play, but isn't part of that play itself.And here we have the mirror of the above. It is only after play, or a good bit before play. There is some limited degree of agency here, because players are taking part in "defining parameters" as I put it before, but not during play.Okay! Yes! Absolutely! I completely agree with this statement. Unreservedly.My problem is that this specific thing has been openly and repeatedly rejected by folks as unacceptable. Usually with hyperbolic alleged examples, e.g. the "wishing a tower into existence" thing or the "a local noble just appears so that you can be granted an audience with them." You yourself, IIRC, were quite adamant about the latter. Yet, when shorn of the incorrect hyperbolic elements, it seems no different from the without-prior-GM-approval declaration that the PC has been to a town before. The player is changing the parameters of the adventure without having to metaphorically submit their forms to the GM 30 days in advance, signed in triplicate.(Believe it or not, there's actually a DW Bard move for exactly that "I've been here before" thing. "A Port In The Storm," IIRC. Non-Bards can always also declare such things, of course, but they do not get the clear costs and benefits for doing so, instead simply feeding that detail into the ongoing fiction generation process. The formal move grants clear results, lacking a formal move means you must talk it out and can't be sure any specific result will occur.)Yes, I would say that that is a misunderstanding.Again, that "wish things into existence" ability really isn't that common, I don't even know games that really let you do that. Maybe Fate? Certainly not any of the PbtA games I've played. Blades in the Dark's Flashbacks can seem like that, but I've already broken down how I disagree with that analysis for that example.There are negative consequences for attempting something and failing, certainly. But the simple reason for why there aren't negative consequences for trying and failing to simply fiat rewrite reality is that...you can't do that. Not in most "narrative" games.Dungeon World's Defy Danger move is useful here. Quoting the full text, including explanatory stuff and examples, from the SRD.That is a lot of text, so I apologize, but it's really quite valuable. Defy Danger is one of the most common moves by design, but also purely by conception. "Act despite difficulty," so long a that difficulty isn't already bound up in some other move (like Hack & Slash) is going to cover a lot of ground.But note, here...there is no wishing anything into existence. There is no expending plot coupons. There's a situation, the GM calls for Defy Danger, the player proposes their solution, and assuming it's reasonable, the roll happens. This sets the consequences (good, complicated, bad), and the conversation continues. It's perfectly valid for players to question whether Defy Danger is warranted, and for them to present a case for why their approach should work even if it's unorthodox. Note, though, the section about how you can't smile at ice to avoid slipping. That's an example of the need for new fiction (how are you going to get out of this???) to follow from the existing fiction (it's ice, ice does not just yield because you made a funny quip and gave it a winsome smile.)</blockquote>

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