Manbearcat
Legend
Let me say one last thing on the above.
I believe the issue with this confident presumption that "in Story Now play, you're invariably going to 'game engine complication improv' your way into a discontinuity corner that is unrecoverable" is a problem of cognitive framing based around first principles.
Here is what you have to accept:
Real life is stranger than fiction.
It fundamentally is. For any given set of variables, there are so many permutations that could spit out a "holy cow I didn't see that coming!" It feels like in the TTRPG space, for some reason, this reality (and it is a reality) is just rejected outright. Its as if any given TTRPG player has such amazing predictive modeling that they are not apt to be surprised by much of anything in life.
Let me say this. I don't work from a significant cognitive horsepower deficit in my life...but (a) I am surprised by all kinds of things with regularity and (b) I expect to be surprised. I work from this same framework in my gaming.
So, simply put, when you start with a - n in any given mystery, there isn't this tiny window of "what could be" at the starting point. Its pretty big. Accept that. Accept that with enough collective cognitive horsepower at the table, with enough trust in system/self/table alchemy, with enough curiosity and holding on lightly...you can absolutely arrive at someplace you didn't see coming...and it won't be riddled with discontinuity.
It will likely be awesome.
Because real life is stranger than fiction and high fantasy fiction is pretty damn strange.
I believe the issue with this confident presumption that "in Story Now play, you're invariably going to 'game engine complication improv' your way into a discontinuity corner that is unrecoverable" is a problem of cognitive framing based around first principles.
Here is what you have to accept:
Real life is stranger than fiction.
It fundamentally is. For any given set of variables, there are so many permutations that could spit out a "holy cow I didn't see that coming!" It feels like in the TTRPG space, for some reason, this reality (and it is a reality) is just rejected outright. Its as if any given TTRPG player has such amazing predictive modeling that they are not apt to be surprised by much of anything in life.
Let me say this. I don't work from a significant cognitive horsepower deficit in my life...but (a) I am surprised by all kinds of things with regularity and (b) I expect to be surprised. I work from this same framework in my gaming.
So, simply put, when you start with a - n in any given mystery, there isn't this tiny window of "what could be" at the starting point. Its pretty big. Accept that. Accept that with enough collective cognitive horsepower at the table, with enough trust in system/self/table alchemy, with enough curiosity and holding on lightly...you can absolutely arrive at someplace you didn't see coming...and it won't be riddled with discontinuity.
It will likely be awesome.
Because real life is stranger than fiction and high fantasy fiction is pretty damn strange.
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