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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Oofta" data-source="post: 9108561" data-attributes="member: 6801845">Which is why I gave the example of 2 people at the same table.Take Sue and Bob.  Both playing D&D 5E at the same table.  Sue only care about what their character can do.  Can they cast those cool spells or take advantage of something like sentinel on a regular basis. To Sue, being able to optimize their character and use their abilities is agency.  The only significant things they do are things involve her build choices.  They feel like they have agency if they contribute in combat or if they can successfully sneak past a guard.Bob on the other hand is concerned about the story and direction of the campaign.  Their actual character abilities don't really matter much and certainly don't add to their sense of agency.  What matters is if they can convince the king to send additional troops or if they build an alliance with the Hoopah people. Put Sue and Bob in a game that's very RP heavy, a lot of politics.  Combat is minimal and often very "loose" combat with a lot of improvised actions that at the very least bend the rules as long as it looks cool.  Sue is going to feel like they aren't contributing much, none of their decisions in combat, nothing about her build matters as much as it should.  The RP stuff out of combat just isn't her thing and she doesn't have much to contribute.  Bog on the other hand feels like they have a ton of agency and gets super excited when they win alliances and change the course of the kingdom and the campaign.In exactly the same game, Sue and Bob have different perspectives on what agency means to them.  Sue feels like she has no agency because her carefully constructed build's abilities are largely ignored.  Bob is loving it.  Throw them into a linear campaign where Sue dominates combat and she gets to use her "toys" and the perspective swaps.  They both want the choices they make to matter, they just put importance on different aspects of the game.You can't measure agency across the board because there is no unit of measure since it will always be subjective and vary from one individual to the next.</blockquote>

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