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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Snarf Zagyg" data-source="post: 9107711" data-attributes="member: 7023840">This is exactly correct.I would add to this with the following examples of why these discussions generate so much heat, and so little light.1. Two people are talking about 3e and FKR. The person who like FKR says that they appreciate that they have "more agency" since they can do anything, since they engage in tactical infinity. The person who likes 3e says that no, FKR is just asking for the DM's permission, so it's "less agency," and they prefer 3e since they can have more specified options to use that they know will work absent "DM fiat". The FKR player comes back and says that no, 3e is "less agency" because people are just "pushing buttons on their character sheet" and can't do something unless they have an ability to do so. And so on....2. Two people are talking about narrative games and trad games. The narrative games player says his game has "more agency" because he can author the fiction. The trad games player says that this doesn't matter, because real agency is about always being able to control your own character, and narrative games don't always allow for that exclusive control. So the trad game has "more agency." 3. A player goes into a adventure. A skillful, Mercer-level DM uses a "quantum ogre" that the player doesn't notice, and the player has a great time. He rightfully believes that his decision had a meaningful consequence that led him to that ogre, and had a great time. Later, the player plays with a bad DM, and when there is a choice between going left or right, the DM says, "Whatever, they both lead to the ogre." The player is angry. Afterwards, the player complains that the second game had less agency than the first, even though the choices were exactly the same.*All of which is to say that agency is a combination of factors that lead to the experience during play. The reason that these threads get argued about is mostly when people attempt to assert that a particular game (or a playing style) necessarily has "more agency" than another. Which is just the usual attempt to substitute jargon for preferences. Chocolate ice cream has higher agency than butter pecan ice cream. I mean, I'm using "agency" so it has to be true, right? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> *This particular example is extrapolated from an example I have repeated before, which is an anecdote someone posted here. They recounted this time that they had the most amazing game of D&D ever (I believe it was 3e). At some point later, they realized that the DM was not bothering to take into account all of the various bonuses and what-not that their PC had, but was simply eyeballing rolls and just seeing if they were, you know, high or low. This retroactively made it a bad experience for them.</blockquote>

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