Better Agents
A reformulated notion of agency in RPGs will involve perspective-taking, joint authorship, creativity expression, navigation of tensions. We move from lone heroes on linear quests to an ensemble negotiating complex evolving spaces. Agency, as capacity for perspective-taking and authorship within a participatory system, is the permittence to pivot ontologies around any axis of freedom previously defined in a play session.
Rather than individual will imposition, see agency involve adopting an effervescent point of view contributing to a collaborative space. An agency is more applicable across many cooperative endeavors where its affordances and constraints allow all contexts to offer possibilities for action — while planning for and routing around limitations. Agency is the ability to perceive and actualize possibilities within a constraint space. This gives agency a USB stick-like modularity: a transferable lens shared with all, here, and to come.
Agency as expression of autonomy within an interdependent system balances between individual self-direction and collective coordination. It allows for uniqueness within a relational framework. Agency as intentional participation shaping outcomes emphasizes agency as mindful involvement in a process against passive non-contribution and focuses on impact rather than abstract choice. It increases capacity for understanding and transforming systems, seeing agency not just as choices within systems but also ability to consciously reshape conditions and limitations.
Applicable to social change, this contextual navigation, intentional participation, perspective-sharing moves games away from notions of heroics or unfettered individualism. Is that a good thing?
Contextual Co-Creativity:
Got a new set of claims for you, fresh out the schloß: Agency contributes a unique perspective within a collaborative endeavor. Navigating possibilities and constraints of the situation. Shaping outcomes through intentional participation. Expressing autonomy while attuned to others. Expanding understanding of the systemic context. Pretend I qualified all this.
In applying all this to role-playing, readers read into the text. It’s as if they adopt a point of view into the fiction, not controlling an avatar. Agency comes from creatively exploring the possibility space of the collectively built world, outcomes emerge from the interactions between player perspectives. Individual expression occurs within group storytelling norms. Players can reshape the systemic context itself through new fiction.