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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9048488" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>To an extent, that might be right - though I think I see these features more as a by-product than as the goal. (And [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER] has suggested that these features can generalise.)</p><p></p><p>What I think is central to "story now" <em>as a type of RPGing</em> is player protagonism, which invites a GMing approach different from the "omnipotent, omniscient" mode that you describe in your post. </p><p></p><p>This is something I see from time to time, but in my personal experience is a non-issue, in the sense that there is no particular tension between "story now" RPGing and mysteries that the players (via their PCs) discover.</p><p></p><p>Here's an example provided in the Apocalyse World rulebook (p 121), which relates mysteries to "fronts", which is the particular sort of GM prep that AW uses:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><strong>Your fronts will tell you things to say, too.</strong> When a player’s character opens her brain to the world’s psychic maelstrom, for</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">instance, the rules might tell you to reveal something interesting. Something interesting? Look to your fronts: Joe’s Girl has joined the water cult, I’ll bet they didn’t know <em>that</em>. So say that, and of course say it according to the principles. Maybe “deep under the brain-howling, you come to hear … is it chanting? A list of people’s names, chanted over and over by a hundred subliminal voices. ‘Tum Tum … Gnarly … Fleece … Lala … Forner … Joe’s Girl … Shan …’” (Player: “wait, Joe’s Girl? . . .”)</p><p></p><p>Here's an actual play example from my own Classic Traveller campaign:</p><p></p><p>That mystery developed further over the next several sessions, and has still not been fully resolved: it has been established that the bioweapons program was an unauthorised conspiracy, but it remains uncertain who all the conspirators were, what their precise motivations were, etc.</p><p></p><p>An interesting aspect of mysteries in "story now" play is what sort of information is the result of a <em>successful</em> check - as in the AW example, and as in my Traveller example - and what sort of information is the result of a <em>failed</em> check - as in the example of the cursed angel feather that I posted upthread.</p><p></p><p>There's no a priori rule for this: once again, it's all about the interplay of facilitation, response and opposition, having regard to the players' concerns for their PCs.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 9048488, member: 42582"] To an extent, that might be right - though I think I see these features more as a by-product than as the goal. (And [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER] has suggested that these features can generalise.) What I think is central to "story now" [I]as a type of RPGing[/I] is player protagonism, which invites a GMing approach different from the "omnipotent, omniscient" mode that you describe in your post. This is something I see from time to time, but in my personal experience is a non-issue, in the sense that there is no particular tension between "story now" RPGing and mysteries that the players (via their PCs) discover. Here's an example provided in the Apocalyse World rulebook (p 121), which relates mysteries to "fronts", which is the particular sort of GM prep that AW uses: [indent][b]Your fronts will tell you things to say, too.[/b] When a player’s character opens her brain to the world’s psychic maelstrom, for instance, the rules might tell you to reveal something interesting. Something interesting? Look to your fronts: Joe’s Girl has joined the water cult, I’ll bet they didn’t know [I]that[/I]. So say that, and of course say it according to the principles. Maybe “deep under the brain-howling, you come to hear … is it chanting? A list of people’s names, chanted over and over by a hundred subliminal voices. ‘Tum Tum … Gnarly … Fleece … Lala … Forner … Joe’s Girl … Shan …’” (Player: “wait, Joe’s Girl? . . .”)[/indent] Here's an actual play example from my own Classic Traveller campaign: That mystery developed further over the next several sessions, and has still not been fully resolved: it has been established that the bioweapons program was an unauthorised conspiracy, but it remains uncertain who all the conspirators were, what their precise motivations were, etc. An interesting aspect of mysteries in "story now" play is what sort of information is the result of a [I]successful[/I] check - as in the AW example, and as in my Traveller example - and what sort of information is the result of a [I]failed[/I] check - as in the example of the cursed angel feather that I posted upthread. There's no a priori rule for this: once again, it's all about the interplay of facilitation, response and opposition, having regard to the players' concerns for their PCs. [/QUOTE]
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