Again, we've had the conversation before about modern RPGs introducing Storytelling game elements and you know that when I discuss RPGs in the above posts, I'm discussing the functionality of a traditional RPG.
The stuff Pemerton is talking about - frame scenes for drama, let the players determine
outcome - existed at least since the 1980s, so it's not all that modern. All the licensed-genre fiction
games like James Bond 007, Indiana Jones RPG, d6 Star Wars etc had something like that
I think. The d20 'Midnight' campaign I played in ca 2003 did that very heavily, and I've
always done & experienced it a lot in PBEM RPG play back to the mid '90s and in
play-by-post games before that. Scene framing & railroading are the two main ways you get
the like-a-movie experience that people want from licensed-genre RPGs like Indiana Jones,
and some other games too - you could run The Price of Freedom as a sandbox set in wilderness Colorado
(Wolverines!) but that's not the thrust of the GMing advice.
I don't think scene-framing is marginal to RPGs at all - maybe it's somewhat marginal to D&D
(outside of the 4e DMGs).
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