AbdulAlhazred
Legend
The secret door doesn't exist after the action is resolved either. It's imaginary.
No. We're talking about establishing fiction. But not all fiction is backstory. Not all fictional elements which, in the story, precede the present moment of action declaration, are backstory - at least in the sense that Eero Tuovinen uses that term.
The two sides of the snippage sit in some sort of tension.
If the PCs search for a secret door, and fail to find one, and hence get captured, and then escape capture by picking locks or breaking bars or charming or tricking their captors, what are you saying is the problem? How is that remotely anti-climactic?
You seem to be saying that action declarations are allowed, and that it's not a railroad - except that all that stuff is off-limits.
Right! Where am I supposed to get story from? I'm not supposed to keep challenging the players, all I'm supposed to be allowed to do is what?
[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], think about this. How do we generate story in Story Now? We do it, that should be inarguable. So how do we do it if the process we follow works in a way that you're trying to construe? I mean, if Eero Tuovinen means by backstory everything that could ever exist fictionally in the game which extends into the past, then nothing can be created, its all backstory, the orc is backstory, the gold pieces are backstory, its not a useful definition and he can't possibly mean that.
Beyond that, you're (Max) MUCH too hung up on the player's role in creating fiction. I have a player in numerous games. This player makes up great character backstory and uses it well, but utterly avoids things like finding a secret door that wasn't written into the scenario by the GM (of course she can't always tell when this happens, so it does, but she doesn't play on the basis of that). We still do Story Now. Its not dependent on that kind of authorship. What it is dependent on is the GM going to the action, creating situations of dramatic tension in scene framing. It then requires the players to, in good faith, play their characters, engaging their beliefs and agendas to shape their interaction with the fiction. It requires that the GM have the freedom to keep framing scenes in this way. The whole issue here with backstory isn't about "are the players world building?" Its about "does the GM have the freedom to frame scenes according to need?"