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<blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 7408426" data-attributes="member: 85555">Again this is the extreme literalism I am talking about here. You are taking a person's words literally, which results in you painting their position as either nonsensical or meaningless. Obviously I meant more when I said this, and it is pretty clear to me what people mean when they use agency in this way (which is by far the most common understanding of agency I've encountered at actual table play). It is about the players being able to explore freely as characters without the GM doing things to keep them on a track, etc. An example of the this would be, I have a session planned for the city of Dee, and at the start of the adventure they decide to travel east and look for business opportunities in Huisheng. They don't need things like the ability to determine what is actually there, or the ability to frame scenes, or any other of the techniques being mentioned here, for me to respect their agency. The idea of agency can be fully respected and explored in a more traditional style campaign (obviously agency can also be respected in other ways). The GM can have all the traditional powers ascribed to the GM, the players can interact with the world purely through their character, and you can have agency. What is maddening in this discussion is people equate the GM introducing a challenge to due backstory, pre-existing setting material, etc, as constraining agency (i.e. well if you introduce 1 invincible wall you might as well be surrounding the players in walls; which is basically prison).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Bedrockgames, post: 7408426, member: 85555"] Again this is the extreme literalism I am talking about here. You are taking a person's words literally, which results in you painting their position as either nonsensical or meaningless. Obviously I meant more when I said this, and it is pretty clear to me what people mean when they use agency in this way (which is by far the most common understanding of agency I've encountered at actual table play). It is about the players being able to explore freely as characters without the GM doing things to keep them on a track, etc. An example of the this would be, I have a session planned for the city of Dee, and at the start of the adventure they decide to travel east and look for business opportunities in Huisheng. They don't need things like the ability to determine what is actually there, or the ability to frame scenes, or any other of the techniques being mentioned here, for me to respect their agency. The idea of agency can be fully respected and explored in a more traditional style campaign (obviously agency can also be respected in other ways). The GM can have all the traditional powers ascribed to the GM, the players can interact with the world purely through their character, and you can have agency. What is maddening in this discussion is people equate the GM introducing a challenge to due backstory, pre-existing setting material, etc, as constraining agency (i.e. well if you introduce 1 invincible wall you might as well be surrounding the players in walls; which is basically prison). [/QUOTE]

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