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<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7358870" data-attributes="member: 16814">I don't think anyone's claiming they have the same agency, with agency defined in the [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]ian sense.&nbsp; Clearly, there are different levels of this agency, and I've been very explicit about this.&nbsp; What I have argued is that total agency is similar, because the trade-offs made in granted expanded [MENTION=6923062]Per[/MENTION]mertonian agency come at the reductions of other kinds of agency, and vice versa.&nbsp; I've also said that this is fine, because different players will value different kinds of agency in different ways.&nbsp; As for the continuum, I started thinking that there was one, but I've come around to strongly saying there isn't an unbroken continuum.&nbsp; This is shown by the fact that there are no games truly in the middle by design.&nbsp; There are DM-facing games with some player-facing tools, and vice versa, but nothing at all that's truly in the middle.&nbsp; I think, despite the tone and strange arguments, that [MENTION=6923062]Per[/MENTION]merton's simplified point that hidden backstory interferes with player action declaration in player-facing games and breaks the understood point of play is correct and why we cannot have 'in the middle' games at all -- we can only borrow some tools while the majority remain in the different camps.&nbsp; It really is chess vs checkers with no true hybrid in the middle.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 7358870, member: 16814"] I don't think anyone's claiming they have the same agency, with agency defined in the [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]ian sense. Clearly, there are different levels of this agency, and I've been very explicit about this. What I have argued is that total agency is similar, because the trade-offs made in granted expanded [MENTION=6923062]Per[/MENTION]mertonian agency come at the reductions of other kinds of agency, and vice versa. I've also said that this is fine, because different players will value different kinds of agency in different ways. As for the continuum, I started thinking that there was one, but I've come around to strongly saying there isn't an unbroken continuum. This is shown by the fact that there are no games truly in the middle by design. There are DM-facing games with some player-facing tools, and vice versa, but nothing at all that's truly in the middle. I think, despite the tone and strange arguments, that [MENTION=6923062]Per[/MENTION]merton's simplified point that hidden backstory interferes with player action declaration in player-facing games and breaks the understood point of play is correct and why we cannot have 'in the middle' games at all -- we can only borrow some tools while the majority remain in the different camps. It really is chess vs checkers with no true hybrid in the middle. [/QUOTE]

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