What is Player Agency?

[Anonymouswizard]

Speak for yourself.

I want my choices as a player to actually matter, not just appear to matter, even if the outcome is less "fun".

And if nothing my character does can avoid that pre-planned encounter with that ogre, then the game isn't fun anyway.

What if I admit I'm quantum ogreing? I have previously called a ten minute break to rework my plot because I've for nothing else prepared (before that I used to use plot armour, now I just give important NPCs backups and successors). I might not run the exact same encounter, but I need a reason for you to run across the scenario start (I'm a believer in providing PCs with a plot hook then giving no guidance).

I also run quantum settings. Generally there is a city (or potentially an interstellar federation/commonwealth/empire), some NPCs, and a whole lot of uncollapsed waveform. Is there a wizard's guild? If it improves the plot. Do orcs exist? Does the king have a son? This are all up in the air until a player asks or answers the question. Sometimes this is worked out in session zero, sometimes a question isn't asked until the penultimate session.