Unlimited Agency?

I was pondering the upcoming "Star Trek" RPG yesterday, and in particularly I was considering just how many episodes in the various series feature a B-plot wherein one of the main cast falls in love with one of the guest stars. This is common enough, in fact, that it's something that probably should feature reasonably prominently in a ST RPG in order to better capture the entirety of the show.

And yet, the romantic B-plot is also something that almost invariably complicates the A-plot in some manner. This presents a difficulty for an RPG, since players are notoriously averse to causing problems for their characters - they want to win, understandably, and that's obviously much easier if they're able to tackle the A-plot undistracted.

In addition, of course, there's the thorny issue of imposing any sort of inner-life on the PCs - one of the underlying premises of RPGs is that you can basically have your character at least try whatever you have. This means, as a strong rule of thumb, that the GM really shouldn't restrict or impose on the player's agency when running their character.

(This even extends as far as domination effects and spells - these are amongst the most-hated things that can befall a character, and the advise is almost invariably to use these very sparingly. Indeed, I go so far as to leave the player in control of their character's actions while dominated, merely informing them of this fact and trusting them to play accordingly. Which, thus far, has worked reasonably well.)

Perhaps, though, it's worth considering whether that cow really is sacred - maybe it's permissible in some cases for the game to assign plot points to the characters, with a view to better fitting the genre? Indeed, games like "Firefly" seem to include the mechanisms needed for this sort of play, where the assigned subplot would become an ideal source of Complications (and therefore Plot Points) for the relevant PC.

And so, suddenly, I find myself quite interesting in seeing how, if at all, the "Star Trek" RPG handles that aspect of the game. And, if it does cover it well, that's one more reason for interesting the game as a whole.

More broadly, though, I now find myself considering whether, and to what extent, it is worth dropping that sort of subplot into a one-shot and/or campaign and leaving the players to drive the game forward from there. Or, indeed, is it perhaps better to just leave the whole thing to the players and let such things develop organically... or not at all?