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I think this creates real problems in the hobby and it accounts for why we see seemingly erroneous understandings of certain games (particularly narrativist ones like DW and especially BitD) presented on these boards and elsewhere: some players don't treat a game and its rules as a discrete set...

The point of analysis is, among other things, to explore unconscious biases, preconceptions, and so on at work in play. "Owning up to it" (in my understanding of @hawkeyefan's usage) is asking for engagement in the process of analysis, and not simply regurgitating unexamined platitudes like...

I think the thing you're missing here, perhaps unconsciously, is that D&D (let's call it 5E for clarity) doesn't have set processes and principles to guide the GM through these judgments. Ironsworn, Dungeon World, etc do. That's a big heaping difference!

In 4E D&D, especially with the digital tools and reskinning, one can very easily do this on the fly. Hmm ... maybe that's another reason 4E is disdained by many trad players: it doesn't require such frontoaded work!

This game is temporarily on hold while we, the players, try to play catch up with real world concerns. Hopefully, to be continued!

In support of what @Campbell says immediately above, I invite you to check out the Play-by-Post game run by @Manbearcat for me and @Nephis. Everything that is "predetermined" about the setting and characters of that game is in that initial post, hashed out over the course of less than a half...

Except when you write "objective setting," you actually mean subjective decisions by the GM.

Last I checked, and for the half century of mainstream RPG history, these things have been called role-playing games, not role-playing storytelling exercises, for a reason.

Why do you see this as a disconnect between player & character? The player is hoping for a positive outcome from AP. The character, in setting the AP to free their mind for other tasks that might result in a positive outcome, seeks the same thing. When I see criticism like this, I think of a...

How does "do what I think the NPC would do in the situation" or "consider what components of a scene seem realistic" or similar judgment without additional guidance in the form of articulated principles and goals of play help others replicate your mode of play? Several times you have been asked...

But it doesn't seem like you are using any robust analysis in this argument, which seems to rest on the rhetoric of falling back upon vagaries disguised by your claims of natural language. What, beyond revealing what is written in the GM's notes, does your toolbox of exploration analysis reveal...

Absolutely! And for this reason I encourage those who have an investment in a new iteration of the game to sign up and get involved through playtesting, feedback, and so on. Even just joining the Discord and directly communicating there with the designers is a useful way to communicate community...

I'm reserving judgment until the game is finished, when we have an integrated whole and see how the final iterations of these design choices fit into that whole.

Have I forgotten asking a question in this thread? I though my modest contribution so far was limited to providing a couple of working definitions.

Answering questions as the necessary output of playing the game is not pre-authoring. It's playing the game. No one is arguing that answers do not get set as a result of gameplay. That, in fact, is (part of) the whole point of distinction that's trying to be drawn: between answer as pre-authored...

Then you are proceeding from false premises. As has been pointed out in this thread (and others across the years), @EzekielRaiden does not fully understand or implement the procedures of Story Now play in a way that other participants in this thread who have significant experience with games in...

If by "such games" you mean narrativist ones, the entry into play is table understanding that what is settled (ie, fixed and determined) is what arises through actual play, not what may or may not be predetermined. Illusionism is when one party (in this case, the players) believes something is...

One way of thinking about addressing premise is focusing scene elements around player motivations and their characters' exploration of ethical/moral dilemma, the tension around unanswered questions to be explored via play.

Almost beyond his own volition, PRITCHARD advances away from the shore, towards the beckoning well. He recognizes the machinations of Asmodeus luring him to temptation, ensnarement, downfall. But he acknowledges too the source of the voices … surely in his head alone, inaudible to Twyll: his...

PRITCHARD registers the skeletal creature’s submission to him, slayer of its nemesis that he be. Calling the creature to his side, he growls, “Come!” and points at the bare earth beside him. When it obliges, he growls a second command, “Heel!” This time he curls his hand in an upward fist, and...