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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 7411925">The problem is your language is so loaded, the judgments are already there before you finish a sentence. Stop forcing an idea like "Moves" onto a style that doesn't even use that as a concept and see if it change your evaluation of what is going on when they explore the world. I understand why some games have adopted the idea of 'moves'. But this is a concept that most people who play in the style you are trying to analyze, don't use and actively reject as a simplification. The same with agency. People are not talking about their ability to shape the content of shared fiction, they are talking about the agency to explore a place that feels like a a living world with exciting NPCs and people you can interact with however you want. I guess the problem here is it is just hard not to read these kinds of assessments as a show of analysis, with the aim of just placing your style higher than another. I don't think it is unique to you, or your side of the fence. I encounter all the time in my own circles. But I always reject because it is so obvious that people are just trying to control the language to place their style at the top, as the real, or the more important style. Right now the idea of player freedom and agency is being used but it can just as easily be anything else. No it isn't. We are not just talking about gaming as it is always done. This is part of the dispute. Most games I've played in, do not allow for a 100%, go anywhere, do anything you want approach. There are usually either conceits of where the game is intended to go (i.e. players are expected to look for the obvious adventure hooks and take them, or the players are expected to stay in this area of the world, or the PCs are expected to be particular kinds of characters, etc). Games where the players are free to explore, are more popular now than they've been in the recent past, but they are far from ubiquitous and far from the default mode of play. So when people like me talk about agency in that context, we are not just saying something meaningless. It is something we hear at the table, when players don't feel freedom to explore is being honored. I've heard and seen that word thrown around countless times, at tables where the focus is something like a sandbox or a situational adventure. And it isn't meant in the way Pemerton is using it. Again, this is the infuriating part of the discussion. We are literally saying A, and you guys respond by saying "Okay so you mean B, well that doesn't mean anything anyways".</blockquote>

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