What do you define "player agency" as?

[rusty_shackleford]

Please respond before reading other replies.

[Stack of Turtles]

I define player agency as giving me, the player, the ability to cheat as much as I want.

[Jordy]

I define player agency as giving me, the player, the ability to cheat as much as I want.

[Jordy]

Wow, that's uncanny.

[DecadeRiptide]

First.

[Xenich]

Player control of the game be it the story, character, or world.

[Spacekiddo]

Being in the illusion that the game gives me every possible choice I could/would take.

Obviously a game can only give you so many choices we aren't playing a tabletop afterall where the DM can potentialy adjust to every possible scernario.

However if the game manages to make me feel like everything I do matters and I can say anything I can think of, then that's player agency to me

Edit: To eleborate a bit more Fallout 4 is a game failing in giving you agency in my opinion. You know just from prologue nothing you do matters, it's all planned out in Todd's vision. New Vegas on the other hand keeps up the illusion much better imo.

[MrTwinkls]

Reactivity to player's choices.
I'm fine with a game constraining me by some enacted gameplay rules/mechanics and limitations (including the story) but if I find a loophole in them, play it smart/dumb or do something unordinary and get a unique thought-out feedback that's what I would define as a game which has player agency.

[Tweed]

Without reactivity there is no agency, only playing pretend. Being able to get off the rails and breaking expectations is a nice way to add agency as well. The more I can do that the developer creates a reaction to, the better. This also goes back to my old axiom that the best cnc happens in character creation. What I'm able to do should be decided by how I make my character.

Being able to play as a dumb character in Fallout, picking a fight with the big bad in Voidspire Tactics too early and actually being able to beat him, and being able to skip whole parts of quests and the like because of things you've already done to people are all part of agency. One interesting twist in the one magazine quest in VTMB you can only get if you insult the one nosferatu girl. Most players won't stumble on that because players avoid confrontational dialogue choices. Having dialogue choices that lead to obvious fights you shouldn't have are another example of agency, something else Fallout 1 and 2 were great with.

[Tangerine]

Having multiple sets of tools (items, abilities, skills, etc.) to solve a problem, being able to choose which approach (combat, stealth, social) to solve a problem, and having multiple solutions (whether designer intended or not) to solve the problem. Recognition on how the problem was solved is a bonus if it's plot relevant.

[Xenich]

Something that has zero player agency would essentially be a story you read, not a game. The moment choices are added, it starts becoming a game.

Something that is all player agency would be I guess a development tool, yet it also is not a game due to that absolute "control" to create everything (ie the obstacles of play) being placed in the hands of the player, or rather the developer.

Everything in between would be various levels of player agency as a game. From a choose your own adventure novel that gives choices to the player to decide the outcome, to a sand box world with minimal directions, story, obstacles, and conditions which leave it to the player to create/change their own adventure in play.

[Maledict]

Being able to say no. No to a quest. No to a companion. No to someone joining me.

[DemoGraph]

Meaningful C&C

[Algol]

Being able to kill everyone in the ******* game.

[TKVNC]

Player agency is problem solving without artificial restrictions.

[Dorateen]

Player agency is seeing a topic relevant to role-playing games, yet is posted in the "General Video Games" forum, and choosing to walk away,