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What is player agency to you?
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9109471" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>Though it would be rather an unusual vector, if that were the case. Though perhaps that's my physics perspective talking.</p><p></p><p>But let us <em>use</em> this vector analogy, really put it to work. The components of the vector are scalar. Either they are boolean variables (1/0, present/absent), or they are not (allowed other number values; amount or degree of something.) In the case of booleans, the analysis is quite simple: more vectors is <em>more vectors</em>, that's all you need. In the case of non-booleans, total magnitude of the scalar matters, but that simply feeds back into the already-discussed "it needs to be <em>meaningful</em> to be agency," so that's just proving something that's already been expected. More vectors <em>of sufficient magnitude</em> are longer, in total, than fewer vectors of comparable magnitudes.</p><p></p><p>Now: Compare the vector spaces spanned by vectors which <em>only</em> admit x and y components, vs vectors which admit x, y, and z components. Both are (uncountably) infinite, having the same cardinality (there is a bijection between them), but measure theory allows us to talk about their "size" in a meaningful way. For any sense in which their sizes differ, the one with x,y,z components is larger than the one with only x,y.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Alright. That's a reasonable stance to take, in the generic: it is possible to add options that increase agency on one axis and reduce it on another. Keyword <em>possible.</em></p><p></p><p>As I have argued previously, I don't see how "narrative" games pay any cost in "character agency" terms. Like, at all. It doesn't seem to be the case that there is any "character agency" offered by "(neo)trad" games that is not also offered by at least those "narrative" games I have personally played. I have said this several times, and I have noted other posters who <em>don't like</em> "player agency" who have agreed with this assessment.</p><p></p><p>Do you have an example of such a thing? E.g., a place where Dungeon World has had to proverbially "swap out" potential character-agency moments with player-agency ones? Does "character-agency" actually map to your ludic agency? (It would seem to me that "character agency" is rather under "narrative agency" in your classification, only secondarily connected to agency over gameplay elements.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9109471, member: 6790260"] Though it would be rather an unusual vector, if that were the case. Though perhaps that's my physics perspective talking. But let us [I]use[/I] this vector analogy, really put it to work. The components of the vector are scalar. Either they are boolean variables (1/0, present/absent), or they are not (allowed other number values; amount or degree of something.) In the case of booleans, the analysis is quite simple: more vectors is [I]more vectors[/I], that's all you need. In the case of non-booleans, total magnitude of the scalar matters, but that simply feeds back into the already-discussed "it needs to be [I]meaningful[/I] to be agency," so that's just proving something that's already been expected. More vectors [I]of sufficient magnitude[/I] are longer, in total, than fewer vectors of comparable magnitudes. Now: Compare the vector spaces spanned by vectors which [I]only[/I] admit x and y components, vs vectors which admit x, y, and z components. Both are (uncountably) infinite, having the same cardinality (there is a bijection between them), but measure theory allows us to talk about their "size" in a meaningful way. For any sense in which their sizes differ, the one with x,y,z components is larger than the one with only x,y. Alright. That's a reasonable stance to take, in the generic: it is possible to add options that increase agency on one axis and reduce it on another. Keyword [I]possible.[/I] As I have argued previously, I don't see how "narrative" games pay any cost in "character agency" terms. Like, at all. It doesn't seem to be the case that there is any "character agency" offered by "(neo)trad" games that is not also offered by at least those "narrative" games I have personally played. I have said this several times, and I have noted other posters who [I]don't like[/I] "player agency" who have agreed with this assessment. Do you have an example of such a thing? E.g., a place where Dungeon World has had to proverbially "swap out" potential character-agency moments with player-agency ones? Does "character-agency" actually map to your ludic agency? (It would seem to me that "character agency" is rather under "narrative agency" in your classification, only secondarily connected to agency over gameplay elements.) [/QUOTE]
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