Free Will- Powers and Agency in Tribute

I know I posted yesterday that I might not be posting anything for a while, and that still stands. However, I came across a great article that relates to my thinking with Tribute.

In short the article is about Free Will, and this line in particular stood out for me:

"Free will is an advanced form of the simple process of controlling oneself, called agency."

See, I have a friend who doesn't get the concept behind the Powers in Tribute. Much like the rest of the concepts in the game, I chalk it up to a failure to communicate on my part. I'm still working on that.

Powers are all about agency, which I define broadly as "the right to determine one's own fate".  As far as I can tell, any type of in-game effect has a relationship to agency.

Before I saw the article today, I was writing and I made this list of refined definitions for the Powers. They're not in the final format I'd use for expressing them in the rules because they are mainly for me at this stage. Still, they may be of some interest. Here they are:

ATTACK- The right to reduce the agency of a Target by applying an Effect to them without giving them a choice. 

CONSTRUCT-The right to create an Effect with its own agency. 

IMPLEMENT-A tool that provides a type of agency to you that you otherwise wouldn't have. 

INFLUENCE-The right to persistently alter the types of agency available to Targets within Reach. 

MANEUVER-the right to give yourself more agency by allowing you to apply an Effect to yourself.

SHIELD- The right to protect your own agency by responding to Effects that seek to alter it.

                  

TRUST- The right to give more agency to a Target by giving them the choice to benefit from an Effect. 

These definitions are what will hopefully allow me to have freeform Effects in Tribute Alpha. 

Thanks for reading.