This is not right, though. You are ignoring framing, and assuming that everything is the consequence of checks. But there can be no checks without framing - without fiction to engage. In the sort of RPGing that I prefer, it is the GM's job to provide that framing, that is, to establish the relevant fiction.
[The GM's] job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . . . by introducing complications. . . . Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character . . . a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character.
Keeping track of the backstory is integral to framing scenes that introduce complications and provoke choices. As a GM, I am almost always giving thought to elements of the fiction with which the PCs are not currently engaged: these (i) are constraints on permissible new fiction (because of the demands of coherence, both ingame causal consistency and gente/thematic consistency); and (ii) are the material from which scenes are framed, from which complications are drawn, which are explicitly or implicitly at stake when choices are made.
I'm not trying to ignore anything. My sense of Framing is that this is where the GM places the PCs at the start of a game or session, correct? And the GM draws upon the established fiction of the game world, correct? But the GM does not have any secret backstory to draw from....so he is drawing everything from what has been established by the players' actions, right?
Let me ask you flat out, because there seem to be contradictory elements in your descriptions and it's certainly possible I have missed something, but does the GM ever create elements of the game entirely on his own? If you've already answered this elsewhere, then my apologies, please do me the courtesy of repeating yourself rather than referring to a post upthread.
Assassination of the king is no different, for present purposes, from the Gynarch becoming engaged to be married. It is simply not true to say that this would be introduced only as a result of PC action.
And to say that it would be introduced only in response to player choice is also to put things too narrowly: the presence in the fiction of the leader of the cabal is a response to a player choice (about PC story and mechanical elements, which have subsequently been deployed in play) but that is not true of the Gynarch.
So the GM can simply decide that an assassin is out to kill the king? Can he also establish who the assassin works for and why that person wants the king dead?
If the GM is doing this in his/her own time, and simply making notes in a folder headed "Campaign Record", then - at that point - it is not even clear what it would mean to say that it is part of the shared fiction. Who is it shared with?
Well there are two ways this could factor in. The first would be the GM deciding, when the PCs don't pursue the assassin, "okay, here's what happens as a result....I'll make a note of it in case it matters later on". The second would be the Gm deciding later on when it does in fact come into play what had happened with the king and the assassin.
Another possibility is that the fate of the king and/or the assassin doesn't emerge in the course of play, but rather is used by the GM as an element of secret backstory to adjudicate player action declarations: for instance, the PCs reach out to the court because they are concerned about something-or-other, but are rebuffed for no evident reason - at the table, the GM simply declares the attempt a failure without reference to the action resolution mechanics. The GM's reason for this - which (it being secret) the players don't know - is that the king was recently assassinated by someone from the same hometown as the PCs, and that has put all the people of that town under a cloud.
But why would the GM have the PCs' attempt to reach the court rebuffed without explaining why? You seem to attribute some need for secrecy here on the part of the GM, but I cannot see why. Perhaps such an attempt is rebuffed, but the PCs find out it's because the king was killed....and they then recall that time when they had learned that an assassin may have been after the king, but they did nothing.....
Are you able to explain this further, because at the moment I can't see it.
Every adventure path I'm familiar with violates (ii) - the gameworld, in respect of geography, past and future history, etc is pre-authored independently of any concerns/interests of the players as manifested through creation and play of their PCs. They also generally violate (iii): eg they contain advice like "If the BBEG is killed, then a lieutenant takes over the reins and continues the plot", which is a disregard of success; and they often involve softballing failure, as well, in order to keep things moving. For instance, there will be redundancies built into the storyline to ensure that the players get the clues regardless of whether their action declarations succeed or fail. These can also lead to violations of (i), if the manipulation of the fiction used to manage the unfolding of the AP requires introducing material that, while technically consistent with the established fiction, is at odds with its spirit or seeming trajectory.
Here are the three elements as you originally presented them:
(i) having regard to consistency with the fiction already established in the course of play
(ii) having regard to the concerns/interests of the players as manifested through their creation and their play of their PCs
(iii) bound by the outcomes of action resolution
I decide I am going to run the Tyranny of Dragons Adventure Path. I discuss this with my players. Each of them creates a Forgotten Realms character for the game. Each of them creates ties to the Sword Coast region. For additional investment, I look at the ideas they come up with, and I take elements from the Adventure Path, and tie them to the characters. Then we play the game and I let things play out as they would based on the performance of the PCs.
It seems that this game fits all the criteria you've cited. This is why I don't agree with your assessment that these elements are closely tied to a "Player Driven" technique so much as they are just sound ways to GM a game.
My response to this would be - have you tried it? That is to say, have you actually run a game in which, as a GM, (i) your role is to frame the PCs (and thereby) the players into situations that (a) engage their expressed concerns/dramatic needs, and thereby (b) force choices, which (ii) are then resolved via the mechanics (without recourse to secret backstory) in such a way as to produce outcomes in the fiction that are then binding on all participants, and (iii) that - if failures - conform in their content to framing constraints (a) and (b)?
Have I done solely that? No. Have I done exactly that at times? Yes.
As I said earlier in the thread, there is no reason that a GM's desires for the game cannot be in harmony with that of the players. So the presence of a "secret backstory" or metaplot does not mean that it has to be used as a cudgel to thwart PC choice and force the game in a specific direction.
It's nothing to do with the GM running amok. In every episode of play and campaign I have referenced in this thread I've been the GM, and I'm not worried that I am going to run amok!
It's about what I want to get out of RPGing. To borrow a slogan, I want to play to find out. That is inconsistent with deciding ahead of time what can and/or does happen. And I mean that in the expansive sense that darkbard has nicely explained:
In that sort of game, the GM is finding out how the players get from A to Z; while the players have the double-puzzle of (1) finding out what Z is (some GMs, and some published adventures, make this inordinately hard), and then (2) working out a viable path from A to Z. This is not the sort of thing I enjoy in RPGing.
Sure, but that slogan in this case has a very specific definition. And I don't agree with that definition. Looking just at the words "Play to find out" and thinking of them not as a slogan with a specific meaning, but rather just as a description, I absolutely play to find out.
I just replied to a post by [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] where he posited that few would regard the use of secret backstory to resolve action declarations as a positive thing, but here (as far as I can tell), you are advocating exactly that! (And hawkeyfan has XPed your post.)
I mean, that's what "indirect impact" means, isn't it? (Eg the PCs look for Calimshani silks at the market, but can't find any - no dice being rolled - because the GM knows that, "offscreen", Calimshan is in turmoil and all the silk looms have been destroyed. Or that sort of thing.)
First off, granting XP does not have to mean "I agree fully with this statement in all ways!"
Second, I don't think that [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION]'s use of the Forgotten Realms as an example of how fictional elements can indirectly affect play is the same as your "secret backstory" point. There's no reason such information must be secret.
Well, I think a touch of advocacy (or proselytizing) factors into it. I mean, personally, the reason I've tried games like FATE and Fiasco and Burning Wheel, and I learned to love 4e is because of [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s explanations of those play styles way back during the release of 4e.
I mean, let's face it, D&D is still the touchstone of RPGs, and DM-driven exploration of a DM-created backstory(or sandbox) is still the default way to play D&D. Your playstyle (and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] et al) hardly needs any advocacy! We all know how to play that way. It's the newer, alternate methods of RPGing that need exposure and advocacy, and simply more people to explain how they work and how trying some of those methods may make your game better. (Or not, of course.)
I don't know that the methods are all that new. I think games designed with mechanics in mind to enforce those methods are what's new.
And whether such mechanics or methods would make a game better or not is subjective. For people to decide if such methods would help their game or hurt it, it would also help to be able to discuss the drawbacks of those methods or mechanics, right?
