I was responding to your characerisation of a GM's prep/ideas/brainstorming as "not permanent". My point is that, qua
element of the shared fiction it is neither permanent nor impermanent, becuase it is not part of the shared fiction at all. (Just as unicorns, not being part of our world, are neither a permanent nor impermanent part of it.)
The distinction isn't meant to be facetious. And it relates to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s point, made somewhere upthread, that in some approaches to RPGing the GM's status is closer to that of just another player.
Players have ideas for stuff they would like to have in the fiction, from the short term - "I want to cut this orc's head off!" - to the long term - "My guy would like to build a fortress on the plains outside Greyhawk and attract some followers as a result." But those ideas don't, automatically, become part of the shared fiction. They are regulated by rules, mechanics and associated techniques.
For instance, the stuff about castles and followers might be regulated in part by rules about class build (eg AD&D fighters, the Leadership feat in 3E) and in part by rules about gold pieces as a player resource (an AD&D fighter doesn't get a castle for free). Possibly also action resolution rules (maybe the PC needs to recruit an engineer-architect to supervise the building of the castle, which is a type of social encounter).
The stuff about chopping off an orc's head is, in most RPGs, regulated by action resolution rules - in many RPGs by a distinct set of combat mechanics.
So, going back to GMing techniques - a GM who has sketched out a map as a mixture of brainstorming, ideas, and preparation for framing hasn't established anything in the shared fiction either. It has the same status as the player's plans for orc heads and castles. When the right opportunity comes along, the GM - like the player - has a power to make this stuff part of the shared fiction, but - like the player - this is regulated in various ways but - unlike the player - the regulations are different: they are regulations that constrain framing, narration of consequences of player action declarations for their PCs, etc.
Just as there is no illusion in a player having notes on his/her PC sheet about stuff s/he would like to come true in the fiction - but that may or may not, depending on how the game unfolds - so there is no illusion in a GM having notes about stuff that s/he thinks might come true in the fiction - but that may or may not, depending on how the game unfolds.
To me they don't seem very similar.
One describes an approach to play in which the GM's notes
establish the content of the shared fiction, and on that basis are then
used to adjudicate action resolution - which upthread I have described as "secret backstory" being an element of framing that is unknown to the players. In this sort of RPGing, an important part of play is for the players to learn what is in the GM's notes. (Eg this is the essence of classic D&D exploration RPGing.)
The other describes a GM brainstorming and making notes about stuff that might or might not become part of the shared fiction depending how actual play unfolds. This sort of play is very different from classic exploration RPGing. The players aren't solving puzzles and "beating the dungeon". In that sense, there is no "winning", because whuile there are unresolved dramatic needs and everyone is enjoying playing the GM is going to keep throwing challenges in front of the PCs (and thereby the players). The focus of play is completely different, although many of the trappings of play (dice, character sheets, framings, action declarations, people writing down stuff that records the established fiction) might be similar.
Do you have any actual play examples of "story now" illusionism in mind? Do you have any thoughts on how you think the GM can disregard the players signals, sent via PC build and/or play, without the players noticing?
I've personally never encountered it, nor encountered anyone actually complaining about it. And that's not a coincidence: it doesn't make any sense in this context.
Illusionism involves a type of pretence, and - in cases where the players aren't along for the ride - also a type of deception.
But in "story now" play there is no need for any pretence! Eg consder the example given by Eero Tuovinen in
]the essay I've linked to several times now:
If the player character is engaged in a deadly duel with the evil villain of the story, you do not ask the player to determine whether it would be “cool” if the villain were revealed to be the player character’s father. The correct heuristic is to throw out the claim of fatherhood if it seems like a challenging revelation for the character
There is no illusion here: the GM thinks it would be interesting and challenging for the player, in playing his/her PC, to have to engage with the villain's claim to be the PC's father. And the GM isn't hiding that; by throwing the chalenge out there, the GM is overtly making clear that s/he thinks this will be interesting and challenging.
So if one is looking for "pitfalls" of "story now" RPGing, I think the main one is not that raised by Tuovinen (ie the undermining of dramatic tension that can arise if certain narrational authority (especially over framing) is handed from the GM to the player) - that is generally easy to avoid. As far as I'm aware, from reading and from experience, the main issue facing "story now" RPGing is the failure of the GM to successfully engage the players, by misjudguing what will be experienced as interesting and challenging - which is not about illusionism, but about poor framing and poor failure narration.
For instance, in the OP game, the first session begins with a PC who has, as one Belief, that he will acquire thiings from which he can enchant items necessary to free his brother from the possession of a balrog. And the same PC has Apocalypse-wise skill. So I open by describing the PC in the bazaar of Hardby, where a peddler has an angel feather for sale.
Many sessions later, in framing a scene in Hardby in which that PC is present, I describe a wild preacher, warning the assembled crowd of the threat of the pending apocalypse, and the collusion of the nobility of Hardby in its coming.
And then, when the same PC is trying to meet with a cleric to have his mummy rot cured, through a series of framing narrations I established that his brother - possessed by a balrog - was the son of Bernard the Holy, once a young priest at the court where both brothers were born but now an abbot in Furyondy and known as the most holy man in the lands.
There is no illusion about the fact that I think these things - angels; evangelists; holy men with unacknowledged sons who are possessed by balrogs - are interesting. In introducing them into the fiction I am responding to player-generated signals: a desire for enchantable curios; skill in Apocalpyse-wise; the hope to meet a cleric; the hope to free one's brother from possession. For the reasons given by Eero Tuovinen, I am not
asking the player whether or not I should make these part of the fiction - those framing/narration decisions are mine to make, as GM, not the player's. And obviuosly in making these decisions I am hoping that the player will find these interesting ways of building on and riffing on those expressed concerns.
I don't need to hide that hope of mine, or pretend I'm doing something I'm not. There's no illusion.
This, again, relates back to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s remarks about the GM being "just another player" and also about the nature of engagement with the fiction. Different approaches to RPGing pose different risks and impose different demands.
If we play a session of Moldvay Basic, and it is boring or frustrating because the PCs fail to find any of the treasures, all the secret door dice come up unsuccessful, and all that happens is a few encounters with wandering giant rates - well, that's like going out fishing and having no luck. Sometimes that happens, but it's no one's
fault. It's a risk inherent in dungeon exploration that the players will not do very well.
If we play a session of classic Dragonlance, and it is boring, the group can blame the module writer - "What a badly written module!"
If we play a session of Burning Wheel, and it's boring because or frustrating because the situations fall flat, and don't speak to the PCs' dramatic needs, and so nothing of dramatic signficance happens - well, that means either that
the players didn't clearly establish dramatic needs for their PCs or that
the GM responded poorly to those hooks. In my game, given that I do have clear dramatic needs signalled by the players, a flat session would be my fault, for the second of those two possible reasons.
The idea of "illusionism" just doesn't have any purchase in this last case. The risks, the demands, the pitfalls, are different.
