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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9124398" data-attributes="member: 6790260">As long as we grant that it has both things--that the presence of subjective elements does not refute the presence of objective elements--I have no reason to quibble here.Yes. I have tried, or at least intended, to emphasize this exact point. The feeling that you are having the desired impact is important. But so is actually having the desired impact. If you are unable to have the desired impact because you don't actually have any impact at all, just the feeling of having that impact, then agency isn't really present, just the illusion of it (hence, "illusionism.") Should that illusion break, most players respond negatively, some by becoming disheartened, some by becoming angry. That's why so many places that advocate illusionism do so only with vehement reminders not to allow players to find out, because it is likely to upset them.Alright. Where are we going with this, counselor?Here, I must quibble: You have (perhaps unintentionally) implied that objections to "GM discretion" arise from simulation but not really anything else. My objections are almost wholly rooted in what are usually called "gamist" concerns, not simulationist ones. That is, I've often said that it is essential to me that D&D is Roleplaying, AND it is a Game. It needs to have Roleplaying or it isn't really worth my time; I can get bare Game almost anywhere. But I can also get bare Roleplaying almost anywhere (and, in fact, I did so for several years before I ever touched D&D.) As part of the Game aspect of D&D, I very strongly believe that players need to be able to make reasonably informed decisions, from which they truly do merit serious consequences, that they then get the chance to learn from those earned consequences (good AND bad), and then feed that new learning back into making new decisions. "GM discretion"--secret intrusion into the gameplay loop--disrupts this process. Informed decisions become impossible, even in principle, because there is no "information"--only what is conditionally true right now, which the players are denied any possibility of learning whether that wasn't true before or won't be true later. Their actions are secretly divorced from the consequences, because in every case, the chain becomes "Player acts -> GM decides -> consequences result," not "Player acts -> consequences result -> GM responds." This then means no learning can occur, because what they would be "learning" is the things the GM permits to happen, but they are not allowed to know that it really is the GM permitting it.Hence, my issue here is almost purely "gamist," and yet it is very much an issue with "GM discretion." At least as I am interpreting the phrase. Perhaps you have meant something different, in which case, I apologize for the non-sequitur.I personally would not consider those forms of agency relative to gameplay. Those are forms of agency relative to the social group, IMO. Certainly still a subject worthy of its own analysis, but not really relevant to discussion of player agency. If you'll permit me an analogy: consider the difference between "restaurant agency" and "menu agency." A group of people discussing which restaurant to go to are not, in that discussion, deciding which dish they want to eat. They are deciding which group or type of cuisine they can subsequently pick from. It is quite possible to have huge latitude when it comes to restaurant agency (picking from dozens or hundreds of genuinely distinct restaurants) but subsequently have zero agency when it comes to the dish you eat when you get there (e.g., they only serve one thing.)It is important to consider this "restaurant-type" agency when talking about, for example, Session Zero, picking a system, setting a tone, etc. These things can have huge impact on the experience of play. But they are not of interest to me, in this discussion. What interests me is "menu-type" agency, the difference between (say) McDonald's, a buffet, a fancy-dining restaurant, a multi-course-meal type thing, etc. That is, I'm interested in how to foster, support, and encourage "menu-type" agency once you have a menu in front of you. I'm not (currently) interested in a discussion about which restaurants diners would want to dine at.Again, not really sure what is being said here, other than (perhaps) that the existence of different kinds or flavors of agency means that a game which fails to deliver on kind X, but does deliver on kinds Y and Z, offers less agency than one which delivers on Y and Z equally to the first game but also delivers on X.I don't think anyone here disagrees, and in fact, I would argue several have explicitly addressed this, with things like "lines and veils," the X-card, Session Zero, and other tools for both addressing the individual needs and peculiarities of specific players, and dealing with the problems caused by socially dominant players, wallflowers, etc.I have negative interest in excluding subjective feelings. I think they are extremely important. What irks me is when the presence of subjective factors in agency is then used to argue that therefore, the objective factors are non-existent, irrelevant, or negligible. Which is a thing that actually happened in this thread; I was told, point blank, that the feeling of agency is all that matters, and that there either simply wasn't a fact of the matter at all, or that that fact of the matter was genuinely irrelevant so long as the feeling was present.Sure. I would also consider that the very reason you refer to it as "meta-agency" is why it's not really of interest to me in this discussion context. It is a form of agency; it's just not a form of agency related to currently being a player playing a game.Alright.</blockquote>

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