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Don't Lose The Forest For The Trees
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7733022" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>RPGs typically have rules allocating responsibility for establishing different elements of the shared fiction - the most important being responsibility for establishing situations, and responsibility for declaring actions on the part of the principal characters. These rules can be formal (eg Burning WHeel, Fate), or presented informally (eg the 4e PHB has a list of the jobs of the GM), or implicit in the way the game is presented (many "traditional" RPGs tend to gloss over this aspect of the game, or take it for granted).</p><p></p><p>RPGs also often have rules for determining if, and how, a player's declared action for his/her PC changes the established situation - these are action resolution mechanics. (I say often - there is an important trend in RPGing which takes the view that one participant - the GM - is in charge both of establishing situations, and determining whether or not declared actions change those situations, with the outputs of action resolution procedures being, at best, one factor that the GM might consider in making such a determination. 2nd ed AD&D is one high watermark of this trend.)</p><p></p><p>These are two important differences from improv acting that go to the structure of play. There are other differences, too, that go more to the ephemera - eg improv acting is more likely than (tabletop) RPGing to use actual space, props etc as components in establishing the shared fiction, whereas RPGing is more likely to depend on narration and (perhaps) illustrations.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7733022, member: 42582"] RPGs typically have rules allocating responsibility for establishing different elements of the shared fiction - the most important being responsibility for establishing situations, and responsibility for declaring actions on the part of the principal characters. These rules can be formal (eg Burning WHeel, Fate), or presented informally (eg the 4e PHB has a list of the jobs of the GM), or implicit in the way the game is presented (many "traditional" RPGs tend to gloss over this aspect of the game, or take it for granted). RPGs also often have rules for determining if, and how, a player's declared action for his/her PC changes the established situation - these are action resolution mechanics. (I say often - there is an important trend in RPGing which takes the view that one participant - the GM - is in charge both of establishing situations, and determining whether or not declared actions change those situations, with the outputs of action resolution procedures being, at best, one factor that the GM might consider in making such a determination. 2nd ed AD&D is one high watermark of this trend.) These are two important differences from improv acting that go to the structure of play. There are other differences, too, that go more to the ephemera - eg improv acting is more likely than (tabletop) RPGing to use actual space, props etc as components in establishing the shared fiction, whereas RPGing is more likely to depend on narration and (perhaps) illustrations. [/QUOTE]
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