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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7351018" data-attributes="member: 42582">Because the real world is not a fiction that someone authored. Asking who has agency over the content of the real world doesn't make any sense. The real world isn't content/I], it's actual stuff that enters into actual causal processes.But a fiction is authored. So if the GM writes the bulk of the fiction, and the players principal relationship with it is to learn it from the GM, then player agency over the content of the fiction is close to zero. Describing that as the same as their agency in the real world is just obscuring what is really going on, which is that they are learning the content of a fiction written by someone else.What does making things happen mean? In the real world, I can throw a rock and break a window.At the RPG table, the players can declare "I pick up a rock and throw it at the window." Who decides what happens? Who decides if there is even a rock or a window ready to hand? Until we know how these things are established, how can we work out who has what sort of agency?Eg if the GM gets to decide whether or not there are rocks, and whether or not there are windows, and whether or not any given thrown rock hits and smashes any given window, then what is the agency of the players? They can force the GM to make some decisions (about whether or not there are rocks and windows about; and about whether or not any rock smashes any window); but that is not very much agency.Now maybe that's not your game. Maybe the player gets to make a roll to find a rock. Maybe the player gets to make a roll to find a window. Maybe the player gets to make a roll to have a thrown rock break a window. But then it's no longer true to say that the GM is tasked with establishing the state of the world - because in fact the player can do that, by making the rolls just described.What you say about how I play my character is correct (subject to mechanics like morale checks etc).When the GM does the same thing in respect of some NPC the players are trying to have their PCs relate to, or get some benefit from, etc, that is another mode of the GM exercising agency over the content of the shared fiction.An example of the difference here would be the GM deciding that a certain NPC won't take a bribe; compared to Classic Traveller, which resolves that issue through a mix of a reaction roll and a Bribery check. The latter allows a degree of player agency that the former doesn't.This is true for me too - I suspect just as much as it is true for you - but that is neither here nor there for the current conversation.When I'm in the head of my character, and I look around for a rock to throw through a window, there needs to be a way of working out what my character can see and hence what s/he can do. There are a lot of possibilities, but the main ones discussed in this thread are (i) the GM decides or (ii) the player makes a roll. One gives agency to the GM. The other permits some agency to the player.Also: there is no judgement in the above, just analysis.</blockquote>

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