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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7374255" data-attributes="member: 82106">What [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is likely saying is that what the story is ABOUT, what it 'contains' in terms of the SUBJECT MATTER is the domain of the players. The GM draws a picture, framing a scene in which that subject matter will be examined, but the subject itself is of the player's invention.The BW character's believe selected the subject, a struggle to save his brother from possession by a demon, and a search for an item useful in achieving this goal (with a constraint, 'before I leave the city'). The GM cast the subject in the form of a feather, and cast the location of interacting with this material as a bazaar, but the player had complete freedom to make the story about finding unusual species of snails if he had wanted to. The bazaar might still have been invented as a location in this case, but the goal and consequent action presumably different. This is what [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] means by &quot;agency with respect to the fiction&quot; and why when you say you have given the player's some choices, potentially even unlimited choices, to interact with the fiction WHICH THE GM INTRODUCED FOR HIS OWN REASONS, that doesn't produce the same agency, no matter how many choices they have. Pemerton calls it 'modest agency'. I presume this is because there is assumed to be some sort of logical progression to the game such that the PC's choices COULD potentially lead in some anticipated fashion towards fictional content which the player particularly wanted to include in the game. Even then the GM still has to decide to cooperate, whereas in BW the GM has literally no choice.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7374255, member: 82106"] What [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is likely saying is that what the story is ABOUT, what it 'contains' in terms of the SUBJECT MATTER is the domain of the players. The GM draws a picture, framing a scene in which that subject matter will be examined, but the subject itself is of the player's invention. The BW character's believe selected the subject, a struggle to save his brother from possession by a demon, and a search for an item useful in achieving this goal (with a constraint, 'before I leave the city'). The GM cast the subject in the form of a feather, and cast the location of interacting with this material as a bazaar, but the player had complete freedom to make the story about finding unusual species of snails if he had wanted to. The bazaar might still have been invented as a location in this case, but the goal and consequent action presumably different. This is what [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] means by "agency with respect to the fiction" and why when you say you have given the player's some choices, potentially even unlimited choices, to interact with the fiction WHICH THE GM INTRODUCED FOR HIS OWN REASONS, that doesn't produce the same agency, no matter how many choices they have. Pemerton calls it 'modest agency'. I presume this is because there is assumed to be some sort of logical progression to the game such that the PC's choices COULD potentially lead in some anticipated fashion towards fictional content which the player particularly wanted to include in the game. Even then the GM still has to decide to cooperate, whereas in BW the GM has literally no choice. [/QUOTE]

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