I had once written the following in reviewing Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar.
Yet even these do not detract from the overarching classical agency of the game, setting the player loose in the world with little direction, until he searches around following his own instinct and volition, for the threads from which the tapestry of Grimoire is weaved.
And there is the cornerstone of Player Agency in a traditional cRPG. Not needing to ask permission from the developer about where to go, where the player might take his party. Unafraid to break sequence, even break the game, if that be the consequence of the player's determined actions. Balance be damned.
Emergent gameplay.
Here's to your thin red line, I'm stepping over.
Last edited by Dorateen on February 13th, 2026, 03:25, edited 2 times in total.
I've been thinking that player agency also requires the player pick his quests. A quest log that is visible, that updates automatically runs counter to this. The most egregious example is quests that are added when a book is collected, automatically. It assumes you have read it, and have sufficient reading comprehension to act upon that.
Far better that the player is given no clear impetus to do anything - even with an overarching story. Agency, in my opinion not just requires, but demands diegesis.
Last edited by TKVNC on February 10th, 2026, 16:25, edited 2 times in total.
...setting the player loose in the world with little direction, until they search around following their own instinct and volition...
...where the player might take his party...
Off topic, but felt compelled to reply. Just more proof that English is turning into woke slop. I miss the days when a "player killed himself" instead of "themself".
...setting the player loose in the world with little direction, until they search around following their own instinct and volition...
...where the player might take his party...
Off topic, but felt compelled to reply. Just more proof that English is turning into woke slop. I miss the days when a "player killed himself" instead of "themself".
In the English language they/their is used as a possessive if the subject is not identified. Here, the term player is used in general, not referencing a specific man or woman.
...setting the player loose in the world with little direction, until they search around following their own instinct and volition...
...where the player might take his party...
Off topic, but felt compelled to reply. Just more proof that English is turning into woke slop. I miss the days when a "player killed himself" instead of "themself".
In the English language they/their is used as a possessive if the subject is not identified. Here, the term player is used in general, not referencing a specific man or woman.
...setting the player loose in the world with little direction, until they search around following their own instinct and volition...
...where the player might take his party...
Off topic, but felt compelled to reply. Just more proof that English is turning into woke slop. I miss the days when a "player killed himself" instead of "themself".
In the English language they/their is used as a possessive if the subject is not identified. Here, the term player is used in general, not referencing a specific man or woman.
Back when I was a kid every sentence defaulted to male pronouns or sometimes proto-wokes started doing "he or she"/"he/she".
⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ My spirit will rise from the grave and the world will see i was right.
It has been the case for hundreds of years that we have used “they” when we don’t know a person’s gender, or when we are speaking about people or a person in general.
For example:
A: There’s someone at the door.
B: Tell them to go away.
B doesn’t know or care whether it’s a man or a woman.
But:
A: There’s a man at the door.
B: Tell him to go away.
It has been the case for hundreds of years that we have used “they” when we don’t know a person’s gender, or when we are speaking about people or a person in general.
For example:
A: There’s someone at the door.
B: Tell them to go away.
B doesn’t know or care whether it’s a man or a woman.
People claim this recently, but you won't find many examples of this exact construction from hundreds of years ago. They're just lying about the past. The norm in most dialects has always been to say "him".
True, the only uses of "them" I recall are either extremely niche "their royal majesty" clause or plural. Almost everything I can think of just used "he" by default when sex wasn't obvious and nobody gave a ****. I still make effort to keep doing that, although it's an effort because the "they" crap has been forced so hard into common language.
It has been the case for hundreds of years that we have used “they” when we don’t know a person’s gender, or when we are speaking about people or a person in general.
For example:
A: There’s someone at the door.
B: Tell them to go away.
B doesn’t know or care whether it’s a man or a woman.
People claim this recently, but you won't find many examples of this exact construction from hundreds of years ago. They're just lying about the past. The norm in most dialects has always been to say "him".
No, I remember this. It works, however, because the "someone" isn't referring to a singular individual, but rather, an unknown number of individuals. You don't know how many of them there are, since door cams hadn't been invented yet.
These days, you don't have to tell them to go away, you can make the AI automatically identify who's supposed to be there and automatically use your voice to tell them to go away without your intervention.
Stay On Topic: Respect the purpose of each thread and do not deliberately derail discussions. If you have a new topic to discuss, feel free to start a new thread in the appropriate section.
It forces the developers to design the entire game around it or else the game simply doesn't work, therefore enforcing a certain amount of player agency.
What I especially hate is when a game lets me do something cool, but the devs scripted an encounter to transpire one way, so I can't resolve the encounter my way.
I should be able to complete most quests before speaking to quest givers. When quest targets only spawn after a quest is accepted, player agency is an illusion. I don't have real choice in what I do, I’m waiting for the game to give me permission.
I should be able to complete most quests before speaking to quest givers. When quest targets only spawn after a quest is accepted, player agency is an illusion. I don't have real choice in what I do, I’m waiting for the game to give me permission.
Some games have "goal oriented" quest design that allows this, Larian games are a good example. They actually use a deductive database and track facts about the world rather than have quests modeled as a checklist.
As far as agency goes - I understand some people's desire to just "freestyle" in an RPG session, but there are a few harsh realities you'd have to face:
1. If we are talking about a cRPG - it's a computer RPG. Computer games are limited by their nature and definition and unless made to support impromptu emergent storytelling they can't do it, and even if they are it will be limited to the extent the developers could afford. Computers are not humans and never will be, and therefore they lack the ability to be creative like a DM potentially could, and that's not to say that any human DM could pull it off, which brings me to....
2. I think when you are committing to doing a module/story you should respect everyone's time and actually do the story rather than get distracted 5 minutes in and wander off mentally, in pursuit of some throwaway line. I played some tabletop dnd sessions, and I always hate it when people start derailing the whole session to pursue some idiotic thing they think to be funny/more interesting than the original main task.
3. To tie it all together, I don't think that "I'll do what I want" is player agency. That's not what that means. Player agency means an ability of the player to effect the story and how it develops in a meaningful capacity (but not any random capacity). Player agency is not having infinity choices, but having at least 2 meaningfully different ones, and that don't feel forced onto player. I.e. having to do X because the quest objective is such and you need to progress the quest and then getting berated for it is a good example of a lack of player agency. A good example would be being able to complete the quest in an alternative fashion, resulting in a different outcome. Fortunately (or not lol) we can look for some examples of it being done semi-competently at Baldurs Gate 3 (and also for examples of it not being done well at all).
Overall, I think it's a bit of a slippery concept that's a lot easier to notice when it's missing than to define what it actually constitutes.
