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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9109451" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I'm not sure the comparison is as apt as you might like. Especially because the way we actually discuss complexity has a better tool: the number of spots on the board (squares for chess, intersections for go.) Chess has 64 squares. Go has 361 intersections (19²). Further, there are far more valid go boards than there are chess boards, because (for example) it is perfectly valid to have a board with no white stones, but a board with no white chess pieces is not valid. Estimating reasonably, there are about 10^170 valid go boards: each intersection has three valid states--empty, black, white--and there are 361 such intersections, so 3^361 = 1.7^172, whittle off a power of two for good measure. The typical estimate for the possible number of chess games (not just board-states) is "only" about 10^120, and the number of possible boards (including invalid states) is estimated to be only about 10^45. Go is vastly more complex purely because of its board size. Even a novice board is 9²=81 intersections, giving 3^81 or about 10^38 possible board-states. A mathematical estimate of the number of actually valid game-states is around 2*10^170.Go is more complex to code because you have to account for far, far more states than you do in chess.So....yeah. You can in fact say that one game is more complex than another because it has more options; you just have to be careful about how you approach that, recognizing that "options" means more than just "distinct pieces." Go has more options by virtue of the size of its board. Chess simply makes it seem like it has more states because it has more pieces, but with far fewer places for them to be, that advantage is quickly irrelevant.Hence why I have said, repeatedly, that we should look at both events/instances/moments/etc. of agency (since you can have few to no such moments, or many such moments, or anywhere in between), and also forms/types/kinds/etc. of agency (since different games may offer different types)--and those things can interact with one another. So--shorn of other context, just as a point of discussion--what would you say about the following statements?<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Statement P: "Two games offer the same kinds of agency, but game A offers more instances of agency than game B. Therefore, game A offers more agency than game A."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Statement Q: "Two games offer equivalent* instances of agency, but game C offers more types of agency than game D. Therefore, game C offers more agency than game D."</li> </ul>*"Equivalent" since, as I hope you would agree, absolute and precise equality is an unfairly high standard.It sounds, to me, like you would reject Q with prejudice; I think that's hasty, but not totally unwarranted. Simply offering more flavors, alone, with no other factors, would be inadequate. This is (IMO poorly) communicated by the "lottery"-type argument--e.g., that having a zillion numbers to choose from is irrelevant--and much better communicated by something like a "menu" argument. For example, a menu which offers your choice of 20 completely distinct entrees but no drink options, vs. one that offers a choice between two entrees and separately two drinks. The latter would in fact offer less agency, despite offering more forms thereof (entree-agency and drink-agency). That I can grant without difficulty. But now let us consider...<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Statement R: "Two games, E and F, both offer equivalent instances of type-1 agency. Game E intentionally does not offer any type-2 agency, at all. Game F additionally offers some instances of type-2 agency. Therefore, game F offers more agency than game E."</li> </ul>Which, to be clear, is essentially what I argued earlier that you took umbrage with. The responses to this have mostly been "you can't measure quantity of agency!" which is a non-sequitur because I'm not measuring anything, I'm counting things (instances/moments/events, and types/forms/kinds.) There is no "kilochoice" unit--there are simply times that something occurs, and ways that that thing can occur.Further, note the word "offer" here. Games do not contain agency any more than games contain, say, adventure. Instead, games offer chances for agency, or adventure, or camaraderie, or betrayal, or whatever else. But what could that mean, other than furnishing the circumstances in which adventure, camaraderie, betryal, and yes, agency could occur? Those would be instances, events, moments, "decision-points," etc.Returning to the "menu" argument above, if two menus both offer the exact same list of entrees, but one menu includes the potential to choose your drink and the other doesn't, I don't see how it is possible to argue that the drink-menu offers equal "dining" agency to the non-drink-menu. You have simply more control over what you consume and how you will experience the meal.Thus, it seems you must deny one of the following:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">that there can be kinds/forms/types of agency at all</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">that moments/situations/events/instances of agency can be counted at all</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">that "agency" is a concept with any meaning whatsoever</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">that "narrative" games offer equivalent character-agency to "trad" ones (or "neotrad" or whatever, I don't mean to hold you to a label here.)</li> </ol>1 is manifestly false, as players, authors, creators, etc. clearly have the ability to influence or control things within their creative space that ordinary humans do not within their existential space.** 2 is similarly false, because making a choice that actually matters--that actually has influence or control over something within the play-space--is an event, which can be counted. And 3, while not quite so manifestly false, is still pretty clearly a problem, given the formal discourse on the topic in many fields, all of which I am not fully qualified to directly analyze (philosophy, law, and psychology, maybe economics, maybe more besides.)Which leaves us with a curious thing. If, indeed, you are forced to argue point 4, then you must be arguing that "narrative" games offer less agency of a particular kind than other kinds of games offer. But that necessarily implies the position you seem so strident against, that some games can offer more agency of specific types than other games offer. If you are, in fact, forced to argue 4, then it would seem you have conceded the greater point in the doing.But perhaps I have missed another alternative? Certainly wouldn't be the first time.**Further, even if we did grant point 1, it would simply collapse Statement R into Statement P: all instances of agency are simply agency, no classification allowed, and thus game E would offer fewer instances of agency than game F.</blockquote>

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