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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7354592" data-attributes="member: 82106">I think the key point is that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is interested in the EXPERIENCE of the players, what they're after from the game, which isn't necessarily related to which particular one of the choices that they make for their characters. I mean, it MIGHT be, but nobody can say if and to what degree. That isn't because of 'railroading', that's not really necessary for the 'limited agency' that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] means. He just means "the players may not be defining what the game is about." I mean, lets use another spherical cow example, what if the game takes place in an endless maze of basically identical rooms and corridors. Its true that the players have 'agency' in this game. In fact, in some abstract way, JUST AS MUCH as in any other game where the GM established environs and contents and thus topic of the fiction. However that agency is obviously meaningless in this hypothetical scenario, the PCs can go left, right, north, south, whatever. They're just going to encounter more endless and virtually identical rooms and corridors. The point is, AT THE LIMIT, the type of freedom you posit has no agency about it. Now, realistic play isn't at that limit, but it is closer to it than what Pemerton does. So, I can see why he, at least claims, it represents less agency. Now, if the players choice of going left leads to a realm of undead and a quest to defeat them, and going right leads to a realm of orcs and a quest to establish peace between them and the dwarves, then that's a meaningful choice, BUT the GM still decided the agenda in either direction. We also have to ask if the players knew which choice lead where. Lets say they did, well then they 'voted with their (characters) feet' and we might call that agency over the content of the game, at least within the menu of choices presented. Still, there are types of things that the players can't do here, like introduce an element into the fiction that wasn't thought of by the GM.Obviously real games OFTEN include, informally, something like "wouldn't it be cool if my character was trying to find the cure for the disease that his town is dying of?" or whatever, and the GM taking the offered hook/backstory. So, probably for anyone that has played as long as we all obviously have, I suspect there's nothing too close to my spherical cow. We can still ask about the function of world building though, right?</blockquote>

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