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Mainstream would be a module, you start at 1 on the map, usually with some lampshade as to how and why, and you go from there to the (or one of the) end(s). Sandbox introduces an exploration element. The great desert stretches West. There are rumors of lost civilizations, ancient treasure, and...

I don't think this bears much relevance to TTRPG play, generally.

But I would expect them that the GM is going back, thinking up some situations they deem interesting, and introducing them into play at some point. Many of those may be spun off prior action. The PCs freed some kobold slaves, who bring them a treasure map! It could get more involved than that...

I don't understand how this rapprochement or alignment can ever exist. The World of the Apocalypse is an f'd up broken, brutal world where when you wake up in the morning you gotta decide between eating your dog for breakfast or stealing it at gunpoint from the people down the road. It's all...

This is all extremely dynamic. In fact I would go so far as to say that the single most salient reason that Narrativist play is not the vast majority of all RPG play is squarely attributable to the fact that it demands commitment and high levels of player engagement at the table. I'll use my...

Not necessarily. I think in neo-trad play the player would make the decision and that would be that, the story arc goes on how they envisaged it, and probably the choice was planned in some degree well in advance. In Story Now play, sure the player might simply declare something like "I realize...

Interesting! So, I do see what you are asking. I would say, no, that AW is not neo-trad, probably for reasons mostly like yours. The player is certainly not the final authority on the story arc of their character, which would be true of hard NT play. If you play AW as it is intended, nobody is...

If they were forced, they had no choice, it is the GM, or the game itself, which dictated this! This seems very close to what @pemerton is objecting to.

But what is authentic? This is all just letting the player explicate what they think. Honestly it's straight up neo-trad/OC type play. You define the character and then just exemplify it in play. If there's a character arc, it consists of what you want it to be. Some of our trad play in the '80s...

I think that, at least in AW, this feels right. AW doesn't have any mechanical input on what the characters feel, or what they decide to do. In fact the game states flat out you are expected to change playbooks at least once during a campaign. This is pretty much just up to the player, though...

Well, that is a caracature of play. You may or may not like it, but it's simply not true that the dice just play the character. It's not even partly true.

I consider them to be kin, but they are pretty different. Maybe at or near opposite ends of the spectrum of Narrativist games. It really is a pretty large area.

Sure. I would say that characters have goals, and players have an agenda, which rests on the use of rules/principles. One of those is advocating for their character, while playing it with integrity in an RP sense. 1KA is not very gamist, but the PCs have attachments which need to be managed...

Sorry I may have missed it. I'm just saying, in 1KA, for example, if I do something significant that impacts the trajectory of my character, I almost certainly need to resist or indulge an attachment, or maybe some other move. I can't just say "I stab him in the back". The dice could dictate...

This is true, BitD doesn't specify a number of obstacles, just an objective for the score, which will end the score mechanically when achieved. Clearly there's a degree of danger which is challenging, but it is mostly up to the GM to eyeball that. So, IMHO, the focus of gamism in BitD is not the...

I think it is pretty much what it says on the tin. Nobody knows where the story will go, nor what we will learn about the characters, who they will turn out to be. Narrativist play focuses a lens on character. Character is under pressure, players have asserted things about the PCs, but none of...

I would parse it a bit differently. The rules of 1KA include, effectively, 'no turtling'. Beyond that the game structure is such that, assuming the GM is doing their job, turtling will not actually benefit the characters. Nobunaga is coming, war is coming, nobody will be able to sit it out. At...

Well, I agree that players in Narrativist games are FIRST participants in the game, and bound by the rules, practices, principles, etc. of that role. But I don't agree that game play, in a gamist sense, can only arise from pure simulationist play. Players scope of play can be anything. What...

And yet it ACTUALLY makes a huge difference. This is observation, not theory or opinion.

I've been dismissed out of hand 1000s of times, dozens in this very thread! Heck, within the last 5 pages people have flat out declared what I experience weekly in play doesn't exist or has an entirely different character. I question where militancy came from.