In fact I'm trying to determine what type of game actively wants for players not to be able to render the fiction in accordance with their desires via action declarations...
pemerton said:
On the negative side, the main thing I don't want is a GM's secret backstory to be a block or constraint on action resolution that the players can't overcome, which dooms their action declarations to a futility that isn't known in advance, and perhaps is not even known after the event (if the players don't know that the secret backstory explains why they failed).
Again... inevitable at a certain point if a campaign is to maintain a semblance of logical cohesion
The second half of what you say is the answer to the question you ask in the first half.
That is: a game in which pre-authored fiction has been established by the GM but is not known to the players is one in which their action declarations are not able to render the fiction in accordance with their desires. [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION] has elaborated more on this in some recent posts upthread.
For instance: if the GM has
already decided that the waterhole at the edge of the desert, on the way to the ruined tower in the foothills, is fouled, then even if the players succeed in their check to navigate to the waterhole they will not have got what they wanted (ie safe journey through desert to tower), because they will have to do extra stuff to get the water they need.
This is what, in my game, I aim to avoid. If, in the interests of consistency in the fiction, something isn't possible - for instance, because the dark elf is dead, an attempt to meet the dark elf in the foothills can't succeed - then I will explain as much and no action declaration will occur.
the moment the GM gets it in his head he wants to use one of the things he's statted up outside of play... whether he acknowledges it or not he's putting constraints on action declaration... such as pre-determining an NPC will be an antagonist... or even that on the next failure he will find a way to use this particular idea, NPC, etc.
I don't see how this is a constraint on action resolution. What is being constrained? What action can the players not declare with some prospect of success?
So a pre-drawn map is pre-authoring... even if certain areas of it haven't been used in the fiction yet?
Well, in my game it is, because we answer general geographical questions via reference to the map rather than via action resolution. The relative locations of Hardby, Greyhawk, the Bright Desert, the Gnarley Forest, the elven realm of Celene, etc are all pre-authored elements of the fiction.
Contrast, say, the location of the mace. This was not pre-authored. There was no prior fiction by reference to which the attempt to find the mace was adjudicated. Rather, the location of the mace was determined as a
consequence of action resolution - namely because the check failed, the mace was not in the tower where the PCs were looking for it.
If the backstory of an NPC has no effect in actual play... why write it up?
Because fleshing out some ideas in advance can help with adjudication. Here is the backstory as it appears on the sheet:
He turned on his uncle, a Captain of the White Tower, when ordered not to flee from the attacking orcs. He was wounded, then exiled; he wanders the Cairn Hills and Abor-Alz.
In the list of the NPC's life paths, there is also a note next to "Soldier-Protector" that this "overlaps with Alenihel [the elven ronin]". That is, there is a note that the timelines of the PC and NPC can intersect.
The only bit of this conjectured backstory that has actually become part of the shared fiction is the bit about wandering the Abor-Alz.
The fact that a Dark Elf... as opposed to a regular elf, a half-elf or whatever appeared... the fact that he was antagonistic... his backstory (which you said was not used but was still created, and as I asked before if you never use the stuff... why create it?) In other words you pre-authored this antagonist, it wasn't created by one of your players it was created by you...
The appearance of the dark elf was not pre-authored, though. It was narrated in response to a failed check, the occurrence of which wasn't known until it actually happened at the table.
As I said, the only bit of the fiction that was established in advance was the possibility of an antagonistic dark elf appearing in the world. To me, that seems pretty thin as far as shared fiction goes.
Does this mean there are aspects of these NPC's and gods that are pre-authored. As an example would it be possible for a player through action declaration to make the Raven Queen the goddess of daisies as opposed to death or is the fact that she is the godess of death a pre-authored fact?
As I'm sure you've seen me post before in other threads, my 4e game uses the default setting and cosmology as presented in the 4e core books. The Raven Queen's status as a god of death is established by the entry in the PHB which everyone has read before the game starts.
On the other hand, whether the Raven Queen is a nice person or a nasty person is up for grabs. In WotC's published material (eg E1 Death's Reach) she is presented as essentially decent and well-meaning. In my campaign that's not really the case - the backstory for her that has emerged during play tends to imply that she is self-serving, manipulative and extremely power hungry.
So in your game are the PC's ever surprised? I don't mean one particular PC but the PC's as a whole... or does everything eventually work out to point to exactly what one of the PC's suspected
Do you mean players or PCs?
The players can be surprised, yes. By small things - like the discovery of the skull mask in the priest's chamber in the last BW session - or by bigger things, like finding the Black Arrows in the (formerly, now ruined) private workroom of the mage PC's brother.
What I'm saying is that for the right group of players (and mine are definitely like this) the combination of the two... a world that has pre-set conditions (providing some unknowns, the chance to discover things they may have been interested in as goals but didn't think of in the beginning, a reason to research things, exploration, etc...) but that also allows their character's stories to take center stage (mainly in discovering how they achieve at realizing, fail at realizing, or change their character's goals) provides an even richer play experience... for me and my group.
OK. But by drawing this distinction between your preferences and mine, I take it that you are agreeing that there is a difference in techniques.