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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7377988" data-attributes="member: 42582">I quoted you saying that "Eero's model is really no different than what most consider D&D to be" and that "This fits Eero’s model precisely: the player advocates for the character."Look, you can tell me as much as you like that players of snakes and ladders have as much agency as do players of chess, but it isn't true. All you do in snakes and ladders is roll the dice and move your piece as the dice and board markings dictate. No choices are made at all.If you take that to be an implication that players of snakes and ladders are doing it wrong, well, that's on you. Some gamblers play roulette; others play blackjack. That doesn't mean that they each have 100% agency. Rouletee players obviously have 0% agency over the outcome of their bet. Whether that is a reason to play roulette or a reason to play blackjack depends on how much agency you want to exercise.When it comes to auction-and-trick based card games, my favourite is five hundred. I think it makes for a better social game than bridge precisely because, once the auction finishes and play begins, the amount of player agency is less.OK. But then what is your point?I assert that a GM-driven game, which relies heavily on the GM to either establish setting in advance and indepndently of the players, or permits the GM to establish setting more-or-less at will in the course of play (including unrevealed setting that permits saying "no"), puts very significant constraints around player agency in respect of the shared fiction. Examples you have given include the finding of an item in a market, or a secret door in a castle. Another that was discussed at length upthread was finding a map hidden in a study.You may not care about these constraints. You may not even be interested in talking about them. As [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] has already posted, that doesn't mean they're not there.You may even assert that your game offers some different form of player agency. All I've really grasped about that is that players are able to declare actioins for their PCs - which personally I would regard as a basic property of any RPG, and so a baseline for what players do in the game rather than some alternative mode of agency. But that assertion doesn't contradict mine. The fact that you want to assert it in fact suggests that you think I'm correct about agency in respect of the content of the shared fiction.This is not what Eero Tuovinen means by the term.This is completely at odds with what Eero Tuovinen asserts. It's also obviously wrong.If a player writes a Belief for his PC "I will find an item that will help me confront my balrog-possessed brother before I leave Hardby", then I know what that PC's dramatic need is: an opportunity to acquire said item.If a player writes down, in his PC backstory, "I travel the galaxy, with the support of the Travellers' Aid Society, searching for signs of alien life and civilisation", then I know what that PC's dramatic need is: an opportunity to confront alien life or culture.This is also obviously wrong. I have played RPG sessions (on occasion) in which all events are dictated by the GM. The players can declare actions for their PCs, but either (i) the GM ignores the outcome of the resolution mechanics (sometimes called "fudging"), or (ii) the GM manipulates the backstory to introduce elements into the fiction that render the outcome of the resolution mechanics (so eg the PCs defeat opponent X, but the GM brings a new opponent Y into the situation who plays exactly the same role).In a RPG like I describe the players have no meaningful agency. l mean, they can speak in funny voices and choose whether their PCs use scimitars or longswords, but they don't actually have any impact on the salient content of the fiction.Again, this is obviously wrong: if the GM has extensive power to establish the fiction, and the players have little such power, then obviously the players lack significant agency over the content of the shared fiction.They are (self-evidently) limits on the capacity of the players to shape the content of the shared fiction.That is not what we are talking about. If I agree to play that game, then the presence of those ficitonal constraints is an expression of my agency.But if I delcare actions to try and survive in the camp, or escape from it, and the GM establishes or manipulated unrevealed backstory so that those actions cannot succeed, that obviously is a limit upon player agency.A player agreeing to play in a fantasy RPG is exercising agency.If, subsequently, that player declares that his/her PC searches for a secret door in a wall and the GM, by reading some pre-authored material, declares the search a failure - that is clearly a case of the player lacking agency over the content of the shared fiction.It may be irrelevant to you.But the basic act of RPGing is conversation: "You are in situation XYZ . . ." "OK, then, I perform action ABC . . ." If the GM has presecripted all his/her contributions to the conversation, that makes a huge difference. Eg it is not going to be very responsive to what the players say. The module Dead Gods is a practical example of this, but only one of dozens.Here's one way that B2 restricts player agency: if a player declares "I want to meet an alchemist in the keep" then, as the module is written, that action will fail.Which also shows that the characters can't do whatever they like. They can do whatever the established fiction of the keep might permit them to do.Are you saying this from experience?<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?473620-Keep-on-the-Borderlands-shenanigans" target="_blank">I've used B2 twice in a "story now" game.</a> The Caves are irrelevant in that sort of game: at best there are little elements of them (the most striking being the cultist area) which can be adpated for other contexts or purposes. The Keep iteslf needs to be injected with story elements that aren't given in the module - ie it is primarily a map, and a source of a couple of NPCs with motivations (the evil priest the most obvious one). And the whole setup of the module - that the PCs are here to fight chaos by raiding/defeating the Caves - has to be ignored.What things? Which RPG system are you talking about here - DitV? Burning Wheel? HeroWars/Quest? Cortex+ Heroic? And what scenarios or mechanics do you have in mind?</blockquote>

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