Agency and Uncertainty

Agency is one of my guiding principles in TTRPG design at my tables. I uphold it as gospel, doing as much as I can to support it in the widest of sandboxes or the thinnest of linear games.

That being said, one important aspect of Agency is informed choice. Players do not have agency if they do not have good information on the consequences of their choices. Two identical hallways at an intersection are not useful choices. A secret consequence of an action that gets the party killed unless they've read my mind is not a good choice. Too many bad choices and the game begins to feel like the dreaded railroad.

But sometimes, there is uncertainty. I may place hints in each of the two aforementioned hallways, but the players still need to make that choice before they know what's at either. The players may be tempted to open a portal to defeat a big evil, but they seldom know exactly what's on the other side.

In these situations, you have to bake uncertainty in the choice. It must be blatantly obvious that unintended consequences are possible. You've got to tell your players, even directly, so they can take it into account. They have to know that something COULD come through that portal.

When players know there's uncertainty, it doesn't feel as bad. In fact, they might even find new solutions to a problem. Perhaps they'll choose to study portals and planes, attempting to put some bounds around the uncertainty. Maybe they'll come back to the dungeon with some torchbearers and the thieves, to scout out those unknown hallways.

I'm figuring out that uncertainty isn't always agency-denying. Sometimes it creates new possibilities, and sometimes it just makes for a more interesting experience.