I think we're on the same page here, I don't have anything to quibble with.
I agree, but I don't think that necessarily has bearing on the question of agency. You need a set of gamestates to move between in order to have any expression at all of course, but agency is discussing the impact and variety of choices players make in moving between them.
I'm not sure how these points relate to the question of agency, but I'm willing to agree that most sets of play can be related as stories. There's a delightful line from an old opinion piece about Netrunner claiming that the entire reason to play the game is so that one can talk about it afterwards; breaking down the lines of play and playing back through the reasoning of the players at critical decision points is part of the appeal.
I don't know that I'd view this as an autonomic act, and I still have questions about relevance; being able to string a series of ludic decisions together thus that you can relate a narrative about them doesn't necessarily say anything about the inverse case.
I don't think I'd grant this at all. You're arguing that higher stakes can make it more difficult to play well, which I can agree with, but the following points about agency I don't think are true. Agency isn't a measurement of difficulty. You're essentially describing tilt, which is certainly a factor in how well one plays a game and what decisions one might make, but not a factor in whether one is making meaningful gameplay decisions in the first place.
I don't see any problem here, though I admit it feels a little weird to use competitive spectator sport language to describe gameplay in TTRPGs when I'd probably reach for cooperative board game analogies first.
Alright, good stuff, good stuff. Ok, so a string of responses and unpacking:
1) I don't know that we disagree or agree on whether or not the person who "feels" their agency is thrwarted in a situation because their limbic system becomes hijacked such that their ability to navigate their decision-trees and effectively activate their muskuloskeletal is negatively impacted "actually" has their agency thrwarted. There is a phenomenon called a "practice player." This individual is incredible during practice, but they cannot tranport that performance over to the game precisely because of what I'm calling out above. Their capacity to call upon their resources and fulfill their potential is actually harmed because their limbic system doesn't support performance under a particular type/amount of duress. The question of (i) "is unconscious, endogenous handicap (which may be biologically determined) actually agency-thwarting" is difficult question and not the one I was looking to get at here. I was bringing that in because:
* "I choked. I am a choker. I failed to perform in the clutch."
* “I clutched up in the key moment when others wilted. I'm clutch."
* “That person made the clutch play at the key moment while everyone else was pissing their pants. They're clutch."
There is gamestate here. There is authorship of a moment (or moments) and of a trajectory here. There is emergent story of the event, of the characters, and some of that is autobiographical. They are all either interrelated or dependent. The flagging sense of agency (being captured by your handicapping limbic system) and the magnified sense of agency (being propelled by your limbic system) is a part of that and that is regardless of the answer to the question of (i) above.
2) Ok, what do you think about this:
a) X football team calls run plays on 3rd and 3 in neutral field position (40 to 40) and in neutral gamestate situations (outside of end of half and with the game within 1 score difference) only 2 % of the time. They are a passing team in this situation.
b) X football team runs jet motion (the slot wide receiver sprinting from one side of the formation to the other, threatening a hand-off at the snap) routinely regardless of down and distance and gamestate.
c) X football team has continued both of these tendencies in the present game.
d) X football team comes out in a passing personnel grouping (1 running back and tight end, 3 wide receivers, shotgun formation) on 3rd and 3 in neutral field position in neutral gamestate situation. They run jet motion.
e) The Middle Linebacker for Y football team has the responsibility to read his keys > fit the run in the strong side (side of the formation with the tight end) A gap (the gap between the Center and the Guard) OR play inside-out (this is called "Spill” technique) and pursue the ball to the sideline if there is a handoff and the ball carrier declares beyond the tackle box toward the sideline > get into their coverage responsibility if those run keys don't materialize into a running play.
f) The Middle Linebacker for Y football team is a notoriously slow processor and undisciplined player who abandons their assignment to freelance or get a jump on what they believe their responsibility is going to be presnap (to make up for that poor processing).
g) X football team hands off the football to that jet motion player. The Middle Linebacker for Y football team doesn't read their keys and appropriately pursue the run and manage their run fit responsibilities; they abandon their assignment and drop into their coverage responsibility. X football team converts that 3rd and 3 with the jet action run and breaks off an explosive 12 yard play.
h) Instead of punting after a failed 3rd down conversion, 4 plays later, X football team scores a backbreaking TD and turns the situation into a 2 score game, a gamestate that is never recovered from. Y team loses the game.
My contention is this:
* X Football Team will have a pre-game story.
* The Middle Linebacker for Y Team will have a pre-game story.
* The balance of this game will swing upon the collision of these two stories due to their gamestate-attending realities and how those collide and then cascade forward post-collision. That cascade will be manyfold. That MLB for Team Y is apt to be on tilt and play even worse. The duress of the new gamestate and his teammates' lack of trust in the MLB will reduce margin-of-error, amplify any poor play, and increase propensity for assignment-unsoundness for Team Y or even recklnessness that increases risk of injury (and that can be for someone on either side). The inverse is true and multi-layered for Team X. People witnessing and covering the events of this game and its results will yield story. The intra-game dynamics, the results of the game, and the coverage of the game will impact the locker room, possibly leading to a death spiral that the team doesn't recover from. A coach or coaches might get fired. People might not get the contract they were looking for or, worse still, they might wind up cut and out of the league.
* The gamestate dynamics are inevitably story and consequentially so.
* That consequential story is actionable, leveraged, and the advantage taken has serious gamestate consequences.
* Those gamestate conseqeunces reverberate into further gamestate consequences which finalize into win conditions/loss conditions.
* Each of those things above are expressions of inseparable gamestate : story relationships both in the moment and in their cascade forward into the future into new states and story. None of it is independent.
* TTRPGs where there is actual agency is like this because of the way gamestate is inextricably married to the context of continuity and the concerns of a particularly arrayed imagined space. In American Football, you cannot separate out (a) the specific gamestate dynamics of situational football with (b) what has come before (tendencies/patterns/established best practices) with (c) the nature of the personnel on the field and in the coach’s booth (which you are trying to manipulate/leverage). Same thing goes with Hold ‘Em and combat sports. In that way they mirror TTRPGs which have a gamestate that must index the context and content of the imagined space. Players create dynamic story parameters > consequential adversity is applied to it > a decision-tree is undertaken > game engine tech is applied (typically including PC build meeting action resolution mechanics) > dynamic story parameters emerge to change the situation and create new trajectories > PCs evolve via both advancement and attrition scheme + the nature of, changes to, and context of the imagined space > rinse : repeat until all matters are resolved (which means different things for different games).