Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 9108296" data-attributes="member: 6785785">I think it comes in instances, right? Like, everything could be going along just fine, and then something happens that you feel removes your agency. Perhaps it's minor enough that you can shrug it off. Perhaps it's not. But I don't think things need to get to the extreme before we can care about them. Sure. There's subjectivity involved in any evaluation of a game. But I don't think that doesn't allow for varying degrees of agency, or that it means agency is binary. Sure! I've offered plenty of examples from my actual games. I've kept those mostly to D&D 5e in this thread because otherwise the "apples to oranges" dismissals start happening. I would love it if the discussion moved on to how people go about gaming in a way that provides agency to players. Most folks seem reluctant to actually provide anything from their actual play experiences as examples, though, and instead we get examples that are hypothetical, which are often vague or hyperbolic. Sure, there are going to be social contract type issues that need to be considered. Some folks never want PvP. If so, that's perfectly understandable, but that's a limit on agency. As a player in that game, I cannot shift things toward a meaningful conflict with another player's character. It's not inherently good or bad... it depends on one's preferences, and those of the other players... but it's clearly a limit. Denying that it is because I enjoy no PvP and so it doesn't "feel" like a limit is... well, silly. Sure, but your experiences may not be typical. Or the folks who've participated in the same games as you may not have worried about agency. That doesn't mean it can't profoundly affect how the game seems to others. For example, I expect my threshold for lower agency play is higher than some other folks who've posted in this thread. I can play in a low agency game and enjoy it perfectly fine! I've done so for decades. What bothers me is if I'm expecting a game with more player agency, and I wind up with less than expected. Or if I go into a game with minimal agency, and the little I have is ignored. Everyone's preferences on this will be unique to them. I wouldn't deny that at all.</blockquote>

Verification