Failing Forward

[Bluenose]

What connection to the game world? You have just informed everyone that any part of the world that your character hasn't come into contact with may as well not exist. How on earth can there ever be a connection to such a world? What you are describing isn't a game world at all its a holodeck experience tailored especially for you.

A world, to feel real and meaningful, needs to exist beyond the perspective of a single individual.

The connection, and this seems obvious to me, is that the barbarian tribe/dwarven city/sea elf culture is something that was made in the course of the game. It's got the little personal quirks that I/we added, that we thought made it more interesting, that let me/us add our personal stamp on the world. Whereas the pre-created one is something I got told about. And yes, that we can add quirks and little personal bits too, as long as they don't contradict the existing material, but past a certain point it's not the pre-created group any more but another one that we've made that has only a few pre-created bits left that we weren't interested enough in to change; or it's as stated, in which case it's far less something we feel any connection to. At least that's how it plays out with the people I play with.

 

[innerdude]

Let me give an example of the potential dangers of pre-authoring from a campaign I'm currently playing in:

In our current Savage Worlds game set in the Shaintar campaign setting, my character is an escaped slave from the tyrannical empire "up north." I've set it up specifically with the GM that she (yes, my character is a she) has been totally shaped by her experience as a slave---she dislikes tyranny and authoritarian governments, and hates the empire and all it stands for.

Yet for going on 5 sessions now, we've been dealing with an incredibly mundane, semi-railroad-y "hunt the bandits" scenario that I haven't found terribly interesting. Now don't get me wrong, I'm still having fun with the group (I'm very, very good friends with all of the other 4 members), and there's been some entertaining moments, but I'm frankly disengaged from the plot and the world so far --- because I'm not doing anything that's really RELEVANT to my character's beliefs and motivations.

Now I'll admit that part of the problem is that I don't think the GM did a very good job with the initial party/campaign setup. There wasn't any real connection made in the fiction for the characters, and the GM didn't employ any of the techniques you might use to create them.

None of us are particularly familiar with the Shaintar setting, so we're kind of still feeling our way through it, though I did buy PDF copies of both Legends Arise+ Legends Unleashed. But so far, we're just sort of muddling along with the GM's "hidden backstory" and it's really not doing much for me.

The GM isn't taking cues from our characters (our hindrances and backgrounds), has done absolutely nothing to integrate the newest member of the group's backstory (he's also the newest to pen and paper gaming, and would probably benefit most from getting some "no myth" love / fictional control over his character).

The most interesting thing that's happened so far was a development that arose in play of my character befriending a goblin NPC.

So, is this a fault of the pre-authored "hidden backstory," or the GM not recognizing that he's railroading?

Right now it's a little of both. Do you know what would go a long way to getting off the railroad? Having the GM change the framing of the scenes to include items, people, references, ANYTHING that connects our characters to the world. There was a PRIME opportunity for him to "fail forward" an information gathering check in a bandit hideout that would have connected the characters to the world . . . and he chose not to.

Now, am I being a bit, hmmm, demanding in expecting to engage what I want to with my character? Maybe. Is it less "simulationist" to expect that the scene frames would include things relevant to my character? Probably. Do I care in the least? Nope. Because that's what I'm interested in, and as a player I'm not going to apologize for it.

 

[Nytmare]

There was a PRIME opportunity for him to "fail forward" an information gathering check in a bandit hideout that would have connected the characters to the world . . . and he chose not to.

Was it that he chose not to, or was he just not experienced enough/trained to recognize the opportunity?

 

[innerdude]

Was it that he chose not to, or was he just not experienced enough/trained to recognize the opportunity?

Good question. I suspect it's more the latter -- the idea of "just in time" authoring / fail forward is a concept that hasn't quite percolated up into his GM DNA yet.

At some point I'll probably approach him about it. "Hey, you're doing a good job so far, but I think it'd be cool if we could experience some more of what we've included in our character backgrounds . . . does that sound like something we could do together?" "Oh, and have you heard about this thing called 'fail forward'?"

 

[Maxperson]

Let me give an example of the potential dangers of pre-authoring from a campaign I'm currently playing in:

In our current Savage Worlds game set in the Shaintar campaign setting, my character is an escaped slave from the tyrannical empire "up north." I've set it up specifically with the GM that she (yes, my character is a she) has been totally shaped by her experience as a slave---she dislikes tyranny and authoritarian governments, and hates the empire and all it stands for.

Yet for going on 5 sessions now, we've been dealing with an incredibly mundane, semi-railroad-y "hunt the bandits" scenario that I haven't found terribly interesting. Now don't get me wrong, I'm still having fun with the group (I'm very, very good friends with all of the other 4 members), and there's been some entertaining moments, but I'm frankly disengaged from the plot and the world so far --- because I'm not doing anything that's really RELEVANT to my character's beliefs and motivations.

There is nothing about what you just said that is caused by pre-authoring. It's caused by a DM who wants you to fight bandits, and that happens regardless of playstyle.

Now I'll admit that part of the problem is that I don't think the GM did a very good job with the initial party/campaign setup. There wasn't any real connection made in the fiction for the characters, and the GM didn't employ any of the techniques you might use to create them.

That is definitely an issue, but also not one that has anything to do with pre-authoring.

None of us are particularly familiar with the Shaintar setting, so we're kind of still feeling our way through it, though I did buy PDF copies of both Legends Arise+ Legends Unleashed. But so far, we're just sort of muddling along with the GM's "hidden backstory" and it's really not doing much for me.

That makes it tougher for the players to draw on the pre-authored stuff, but you'll learn about it as you go and be able to draw on it. Also, pre-authored content that you don't know about isn't back story, hidden or otherwise. A hidden campaign plot can be hidden back story, though. Perhaps you are meaning that as opposed to calling setting stuff that you don't know about hidden back story.

The GM isn't taking cues from our characters (our hindrances and backgrounds), has done absolutely nothing to integrate the newest member of the group's backstory (he's also the newest to pen and paper gaming, and would probably benefit most from getting some "no myth" love / fictional control over his character).

Also not having anything to do with pre-authoring,

The most interesting thing that's happened so far was a development that arose in play of my character befriending a goblin NPC.

Cool.

So, is this a fault of the pre-authored "hidden backstory," or the GM not recognizing that he's railroading?

As you presented it, there is nothing that has anything to do with hidden back story or pre-authoring. As for railroading, there isn't really enough for me to be able to tell if that is happening or not. If you try to avoid the bandits and go a different direction, what happens?

 

[pemerton]

There is no "may amount railroading" in the style at all. Period. Railroading only comes from bad DMs that railroad, and that's just as likely in your style as mine.

What we're trying to say is that DM bias (railroading) is just as likely in your style as ours.

<snip>

There is nothing about your style of play that leads it to be less railroad prone than my style.

<snip>

If anything, I would argue that it's easier to railroad with your style due to there not being an pre-authored content to contradict the DM.

What's your evidence that there are Burning Wheel, or Dungeon World, campaigns out there that involve railroading? Where are they? How does the railroading work? If, when the players succeed on a check then the fiction is changed in the manner they declared, how is the railroading coming in? What device does the GM use to stop the fiction changing in that way?

There is no need for pre-authored content to contradict the GM! All the players have to do is succeed on their checks. For instance, in the instance of the mace: if the players had succeeded on the Scavenging check, they would have found the mace. In the instance of the waterhole, if the players had succeed on the orienteering (Song of Paths and Ways) check, the waterhole would have been filled with pure water. In other words, there is no need for pre-authored fiction to constrain the GM when the rules of the game establish that if the check succeeds then both intent and task are realised! The only reason you're even thinking about the need for pre-authorship as a constraint on the GM is because you're not thinking of success on checks as meaning intent, as well as task, succeeds; which is to say, you're not thinking in the mechanical framework that is typical of the games that make a self-conscious point of advocating "fail forward" as a technique.

Look at actual threads and discussions around railroading. (I've read and participated in plenty.) They involve GMs who already have a conception of what the shared fiction and the story will be, and who manipulate the action resolution mechanics to achieve that end.

There are certainly sandbox GMs who don't have a conception of what the story will be, and run primarily exploratory games in which players take their PCs through the sandbox. But these games don't have the mechanisms and structures to reliably generate story (in the strong, literary/dramatic sense of that word). That's why designers like Luke Crane, Ron Edwards etc tried to self-consciously articulate alternative techniques, of which "fail forward" is one aspect.

this is just as insulting now as it was then. It implies that my style contains railroading inherently and a DM has to go out of his way to avoid it, rather than the reality which is that like your style, railroading simply does not exist unless the DM puts it there.

No. It implies that a pre-authored game either contains railroading or lacks story (in the strong sense). In lieu of story, there is exploration and discovery. In lieu of the narrative dynamics generated by "fail forward" as a technique, there is the players exploring and unravelling the puzzle of the setting.

There's a reason that designers like Luke Crane, Robin Laws etc wrote the games that they wrote. It was because they found that "traditional" or "conventional" pre-authored RPG setting didn't produce story (in the strong sense) without railroading. That's why their techniques have got no relevance to those modes of play (eg Gygaxian dungeon-crawling; Runequest setting exploration; etc) in which story is not a goal of play (except perhaps as an after-the-event, emergent byproduct with participants' retellings of the events of play).

Thus, for instance, all the people who say that RPGing is different from novels and films, in that story is not achievable in the same way without railroading - they are rejecting "fail forward" and associated techniques, and advocating for setting exploration instead. The advocates of "fail forward" and associated techniques, on the other hand, are out to prove those people wrong by achieving story in their RPGs without railroading.

(By the way, in a recent fudging thread you yourself have posted that you manipulate dice rolls from time to time to ensure the preservation of narrative dynamics. To me, that seems kind of relevant to this discussion.)

The DM could have decided that the familiar 10 gallon hat was there due to unbiased reasons, or he could have put it there because at the beginning he had the idea that the brother would turn out to be a fallen hero and this was just his way of sticking it into the story.

This is weird. As soon as the player writes down the conviction for his/her PC that "My brother is my hero", of course the GM comes up with the idea that the brother might be a fallen hero. That's the whole point!

Just as, in my BW game, when one of the players writes down the Belief that for his PC that "I will redeem my brother who has been possessed by a balrog", I have in mind the possibility that the brother was fallen before the balrog possessed him.

That was [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s point: having those ideas isn't GM bias against the player, it's a basic premise of this sort of game. That's how you ensure that the game will have story (in the strong sense, of a dramatic, character-driven narrative) rather than a focus on exploration and discovery.

But where's the railroad? What is the nature of the brother in the imaginary DitV scenario? We don't know, because no actions have been declared and resolved.

What is the nature of the brother in my (non-imaginary) BW game? We don't know. How did the black arrows get there? And supposing they were made by the brother, why? And what does that tell us about him?

It's all up for grabs.

The story is not pre-written. No one knows how it is going to end. Certainly not me!

The very few pre-authored constraints are no different than constraints the game places on character creation and upon game play.

No different how? For me, they're quite different. Rules are consensually chosen, and create the framework in which the shared fiction is established. Unilateral (and moreso secret) pre-auhtoring by the GM has a different character altogether.

I also ignore or change things I dislike about the pre-authored settings I use.

At what point? In advance, and it's still pre-authoring (but home brew rather than pre-packaged). My point is that the details of GH, as it figures in my BW game, won't be known until the game is actually played, at the table.

Fail forward works as well in my style of gaming as it does in yours.

You don't use "fail forward" in the sense that that term was coined by Crane, Edwards, Tweet etc. This became clear in the discussion around Mt Pudding.

There may be some other sense of "fail forward" in which you use the technique, but (i) I'm not 100% sure what that is - perhaps that you don't insist on just one solution to a problem with which you confront the PCs? - and (ii) that doesn't have much bearing on the nature or relevance of the technique that is promoted by designers like Crane, Edwards, Tweet, Robin Laws etc.

I said pre-authoring adds depth, and it does. Depth is impossible without pre-authoring. Your style also relies on pre-authoring to provide depth. It's just that the players and DM pre-author things as the game progresses

That last phrase is oxymoronic. You can't pre-author something in the moment. Either you pre-author it. Or you author it in the moment.

Every setting limitation that exists in a pre-authored setting can also come up as a limitation in your style of game play. They just don't exist in advance.

<snip>

There isn't a claim that a limitation is bad if pre-authored, but the same limitation is good if authored in the moment, even though that authored in the moment limitation becomes a pre-authored limitation the instant the moment is over.

The not existing in advance is utterly key. That's the whole point! And I absolutely claim that the same limitation might be problematic if pre-authored but not problematic if authored in the moment. Again, that's the whole point! The issue is not about content of the shared fiction; it's about the process and method of generating it.

To give a concrete example: it makes a huge difference to me that the absence of the mace from the ruined tower is the result of a failed check by the players, rather than something I stipulated in advance.

Fail forward has nothing to do with depth or pre-authoring.

"Fail forward", in the sense in which the designers who coined the term and articulated the notion use it, has a lot to do with pre-authoring. It is about the GM narrating failure in a manner which preserves dramatic dynamism, while placing the PC in an undesired situation. That means having the fiction sufficiently loose or unspecified that the new, adverse circumstances can be narrated without contradicting what has gone before. That, in turn, means avoiding certain types of pre-authoring.

For instance, if every interesting property of the angel feather is pre-authored, then I don't have the scope to narrate the failed Aura Reading check as discovering that the feather is cursed. If every interesting property of the mace is pre-authored, then I don't have the scope to decide, after the attempt to find it fails, that it is in the hands of the dark elf. If everything about the waterhole is pre-authored, then I don't have the scope to say, if the orienteering check succeeds, that the PCs made it to the tower finding plenty of fresh water on the way, while if the check fails saying that the PCs arrive at the waterhole only to find it fouled.

These are all concrete, actual play illustrations of the centrality, to "fail forward" as a technique advocated by those designers, for their games, depends upon a certain lack of pre-authoring.

 

[pemerton]

pre-authored content that you don't know about isn't back story, hidden or otherwise. A hidden campaign plot can be hidden back story, though. Perhaps you are meaning that as opposed to calling setting stuff that you don't know about hidden back story.

I think that [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION] is using "hidden backstory" in the same sense that I use "secret backstory" ie pre-authored elements of the fiction that only the GM knows about, which the GM uses to adjudicate action resolution, to determine how NPCs respond, to work out what happens next, etc.

This has a lot to do with pre-authoring, also - it's all about establishing the fiction in advance and extrapolating from that, rather than framing your scenes based on player cues and then extrapolating the fiction from the outcomes of the players' action declarations. The latter method does two things: it gives the modulation of success and setback that helps ensure a story; and it ensures that the players as well as the GM shape the key aspects of the fiction (namely, every time they succeed on a check).

As for railroading, there isn't really enough for me to be able to tell if that is happening or not. If you try to avoid the bandits and go a different direction, what happens?

That this question is even on the table, though, shows us that the game is not one that generates story in the strong, non-trivial, literary sense. At best, the game as described is an exploration game, where if the players take their PCs to another place in the setting they can find some different stuff to engage with.

That's not story-generating play.

am I being a bit, hmmm, demanding in expecting to engage what I want to with my character? Maybe.

I guess it depends what the promise was going into the campaign.

But your expectation isn't unreasonable in any apriori sense.

I see plenty of posters on these boards saying that RPGs can't deliver what you want. But my experience tells me that they're wrong.

 

[Maxperson]

What's your evidence that there are Burning Wheel, or Dungeon World, campaigns out there that involve railroading? Where are they? How does the railroading work? If, when the players succeed on a check then the fiction is changed in the manner they declared, how is the railroading coming in? What device does the GM use to stop the fiction changing in that way?

Seriously? You're claiming that that there are no bad DMs out there that railroad in those systems? Somehow only other systems have those sorts of DMs?

How would it work? Well, it doesn't have to happen on every check, so player successes are irrelevant. If the DM inserts his desires into failed checks to drive the game down paths he wants them down, railroading has occurred. If you seriously can't see that railroading can happen in those systems, then you're too blind to continue having this conversation with.

Are you that blind, or are you just being disingenuous with those questions?

There is no need for pre-authored content to contradict the GM! All the players have to do is succeed on their checks. For instance, in the instance of the mace: if the players had succeeded on the Scavenging check, they would have found the mace. In the instance of the waterhole, if the players had succeed on the orienteering (Song of Paths and Ways) check, the waterhole would have been filled with pure water. In other words, there is no need for pre-authored fiction to constrain the GM when the rules of the game establish that if the check succeeds then both intent and task are realised! The only reason you're even thinking about the need for pre-authorship as a constraint on the GM is because you're not thinking of success on checks as meaning intent, as well as task, succeeds; which is to say, you're not thinking in the mechanical framework that is typical of the games that make a self-conscious point of advocating "fail forward" as a technique.

This is a lot of nothing. Pre-authored content doesn't constrain the DM any more than a PC being an elf constrains him. Such light "constraint" is irrelevant and meaningless. It's still easier to railroad with your system. Unless the players can't fail rolls anyway. If they can, the DM can push them wherever he wants, however he wants with nothing and no one to say otherwise, except of course for you guys have pre-authored already through prior game play. Pre-authorship helps prevent railroading.

Look at actual threads and discussions around railroading. (I've read and participated in plenty.) They involve GMs who already have a conception of what the shared fiction and the story will be, and who manipulate the action resolution mechanics to achieve that end.

Your system allows that and makes it easier due to lack of pre-authored content.

There are certainly sandbox GMs who don't have a conception of what the story will be, and run primarily exploratory games in which players take their PCs through the sandbox. But these games don't have the mechanisms and structures to reliably generate story (in the strong, literary/dramatic sense of that word). That's why designers like Luke Crane, Ron Edwards etc tried to self-consciously articulate alternative techniques, of which "fail forward" is one aspect.

Funny. I run sandbox games and story is reliably generated all the time. People claiming otherwise just can't run a proper sandbox game and/or don't have players that are up to playing in a sandbox game. It's not a playstyle for everyone and those that are hyper critical of it are very likely incapable of playing it properly. They're trying to drive a stick shift without knowing how and blaming failure on the car.

No. It implies that a pre-authored game either contains railroading or lacks story (in the strong sense). In lieu of story, there is exploration and discovery. In lieu of the narrative dynamics generated by "fail forward" as a technique, there is the players exploring and unravelling the puzzle of the setting.

Neither "implication" is true. That's just another of your False Dichotomies. Just because the PCs can go in any direction, does not mean that exploration and discovery rule out over story, or story is lacking. I run a sandbox. Story is huge. Railroading is non-existent. I am proof of the falseness of that claim.

There's a reason that designers like Luke Crane, Robin Laws etc wrote the games that they wrote. It was because they found that "traditional" or "conventional" pre-authored RPG setting didn't produce story (in the strong sense) without railroading. That's why their techniques have got no relevance to those modes of play (eg Gygaxian dungeon-crawling; Runequest setting exploration; etc) in which story is not a goal of play (except perhaps as an after-the-event, emergent byproduct with participants' retellings of the events of play).

More likely, they were incapable of running a sandbox properly and the failure of story without railroad was their personal problem.

Thus, for instance, all the people who say that RPGing is different from novels and films, in that story is not achievable in the same way without railroading - they are rejecting "fail forward" and associated techniques, and advocating for setting exploration instead. The advocates of "fail forward" and associated techniques, on the other hand, are out to prove those people wrong by achieving story in their RPGs without railroading.

Have you changed the definition of Fail Forward again? Last I heard, it was 1) not allowing failure to stop the PCs dead in their tracks by having other options, and 2) Success with a cost when they roll a failure. Neither of those definitions has anything to do with railroading, and neither of them don't work very well in a pre-authored setting.

This is weird. As soon as the player writes down the conviction for his/her PC that "My brother is my hero", of course the GM comes up with the idea that the brother might be a fallen hero. That's the whole point!

So railroading is good? Or are you saying that DM forcing his idea on the player and moving towards that goal at every opportunity isn't railroading?

Just as, in my BW game, when one of the players writes down the Belief that for his PC that "I will redeem my brother who has been possessed by a balrog", I have in mind the possibility that the brother was fallen before the balrog possessed him.

The possibility or the fact? My example wasn't of a possibility, it was of a fact that the DM pre-authored and forced to happen.

That was [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s point: having those ideas isn't GM bias against the player, it's a basic premise of this sort of game. That's how you ensure that the game will have story (in the strong sense, of a dramatic, character-driven narrative) rather than a focus on exploration and discovery.

Then you guys are for pre-authorship, because that's what you are doing when you do that.

But where's the railroad? What is the nature of the brother in the imaginary DitV scenario? We don't know, because no actions have been declared and resolved.

The DM knows. That's the point. He knew from the beginning before any actions were declared and resolved and then deliberately forced the resolution to that goal. That's railroading.

What is the nature of the brother in my (non-imaginary) BW game? We don't know. How did the black arrows get there? And supposing they were made by the brother, why? And what does that tell us about him?

It's all up for grabs.

The story is not pre-written. No one knows how it is going to end. Certainly not me!

Unless you decided that you knew from the beginning and forced the issue. That's the point. I'm not saying that YOU railroad. I'm saying that without pre-authorship, it's exceedingly easy to railroad in your system. Easier even than in a pre-authored world.

No different how? For me, they're quite different. Rules are consensually chosen, and create the framework in which the shared fiction is established. Unilateral (and moreso secret) pre-auhtoring by the GM has a different character altogether.

Unilateral? Players and DMs pick campaign worlds together all the time. Even if the DM picked it unilaterally, the players consent merely by agreeing to play in that world. No consent = no play. That makes the pre-authored content consensual.

You don't use "fail forward" in the sense that that term was coined by Crane, Edwards, Tweet etc. This became clear in the discussion around Mt Pudding.

Actually, I do. I just don't use it for everything. There are times when it's appropriate. That is also what I aid in the Mt. Pudding discussion. Now, if I wanted, I could use it for everything and still pre-author without railroading. How? Because fail forward has nothing to do with those two things. There is no connection between those ideas.

That last phrase is oxymoronic. You can't pre-author something in the moment. Either you pre-author it. Or you author it in the moment.

You aren't understanding. Unless everything you guys do has no bearing on the future, or it does. If it does, then everything you author in the moment becomes pre-authored content a few seconds later as it was authored pre-that time. You use that pre-authored content for your games.

The not existing in advance is utterly key. That's the whole point! And I absolutely claim that the same limitation might be problematic if pre-authored but not problematic if authored in the moment. Again, that's the whole point! The issue is not about content of the shared fiction; it's about the process and method of generating it.

But it DOES exist in advance. It exists in advance of everything that comes after it. There is zero difference between my pre-authoring a dark elf antagonist at the beginning to appear at the water hole, and you authoring it in the moment of the water hole. Both are a dark elf antagonist, and both are pre-authored for every single second after it appears at the water hole. That you didn't know before hand is irrelevant to game play. Game play is going to act on the dark elf being a pre-authored antagonist for both playstyles.

To give a concrete example: it makes a huge difference to me that the absence of the mace from the ruined tower is the result of a failed check by the players, rather than something I stipulated in advance.

You say that, but you really haven't given any real reason for it other than you like it that way, and incorrect perceptions of pre-authorship and sandbox play.

"Fail forward", in the sense in which the designers who coined the term and articulated the notion use it, has a lot to do with pre-authoring. It is about the GM narrating failure in a manner which preserves dramatic dynamism, while placing the PC in an undesired situation. That means having the fiction sufficiently loose or unspecified that the new, adverse circumstances can be narrated without contradicting what has gone before. That, in turn, means avoiding certain types of pre-authoring.

Since I can use fail forward in a sandbox, pre-authored setting with 0 difficulties and to great effect and with no railroad and with great story, you're going to have to prove that statement with something other than just claims.

For instance, if every interesting property of the angel feather is pre-authored, then I don't have the scope to narrate the failed Aura Reading check as discovering that the feather is cursed. If every interesting property of the mace is pre-authored, then I don't have the scope to decide, after the attempt to find it fails, that it is in the hands of the dark elf. If everything about the waterhole is pre-authored, then I don't have the scope to say, if the orienteering check succeeds, that the PCs made it to the tower finding plenty of fresh water on the way, while if the check fails saying that the PCs arrive at the waterhole only to find it fouled.

And this just illustrates your ignorance of pre-authoring. If the game pre-authors angel feathers by saying that, "Angel feathers have great holy power.", that isn't an exhaustive list. Nor does it prevent exceptions from happening. I am fully capable, without changing anything, of deciding an angel feather is cursed. Nothing about that pre-authorship keeps that from happening. Pre-authored settings don't give exhaustive lists of every possible property of things.

 

[innerdude]

I think some of the confusion that's arising, @Maxperson, is what the conception of "story" @pemerton is referring to here. It's not just the general "something happens," i.e., the characters get to do something, and something else happens as a result. That's just general "scene framing" put into motion.

He's talking about "story" in the Forge-ist sense---the idea that character's dramatic needs, the needs and goals generated through the act of player PC creation, are the PRIMARY force for action in the fiction. If the GM's "backstory" or "setting" or NPC motivations, or whatever, aren't purposefully molded around the PC's stated goals, it's not generating "story" in the manner in which @pemerton is describing.

What are the practical implications of actually trying to produce "story" in this sense? It means, as we've been discussing for 94 pages of forum threads now, that ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in the GM's conception of the "fiction" is 100% absolute. To really produce this kind of play, the GM has to be willing to do 180 degree turns on previously "pre-authored" elements because that's what the story, as defined by the PCs dramatic needs, requires.

It requires, as a GM, that you CANNOT hold claim to ANYTHING as being "sacred" in terms of backstory. And a LOT of GMs have a problem with that when they've put a lot of work into generating a setting, a backstory, etc.

This is the point on which "no myth" and "nothing in the fiction is real until it comes up in play and the PCs interact with it" hinges. If it becomes necessary to completely wipe the slate with a piece of the "fiction" as previously conceived and re-draw it in that moment because that's what the PCs dramatic needs requires, then that's what happens.

It means being willing, as a GM, to completely re-write, on the fly, WHAT may be present in a scene frame, WHY it is there in the scene frame, and WHAT ELSE it interacted with to get there.

And there are assuredly risks in playing this way. The biggest one, which has already been identified, is that it creates muddy areas where keeping the fiction coherent/consistent can be problematic if the GM and players aren't on the same page. And it puts an awful lot of pressure on the GM to be creative and flexible. To meet this level of creativity and flexibility, it requires the GM to have either an absolute, comprehensive rules mastery if it's a heavy-crunch system, or it requires a system that alleviates these pressures.

And as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is describing, it helps when the system itself (Burning Wheel) is mechanically designed to compel both GMs and players to adhere to this playstyle.

 

[Imaro]

Okay I'm a little confused are we speaking about specific systems or play styles? They are two different, though admittedly connected, things... The original discussion (as well as the railroad discussion) was around play styles but now it seems [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] are discussing specific systems... which really wasn't what was being discussed, and seems to be causing some confusion...