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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6685063" data-attributes="member: 42582">By action I was intending real agency to change the fiction by use of the procedural rules elements that allow the players to affect the fiction.The phrase "plot relevant ways" is interesting. I think it's redundant, in the sense that if the players have real agency to change the fiction via the game mechanics then the plot is what will emerge organically from the exercise of that agency. (And if the way the mechanics empower the players to change the fiction tends to produce a plot that is uninteresting to the participants - eg if the system produces too much focus on what the participants regard as minutiae - the answer is to change the system!)My own experience makes me think that, in RPGing, the goals or orientation of player action declarations will tend to be on external goals, because these are easily communicated at the table and also lend themselves to "party play", which is an element of many RPGs. Though I also think these external goals can be linked to emotional states. I'll give two examples, which will also show that I'm setting a fairly low threshold for achieving an emotional state.One of the players in my 4e game has had as the goal for his drow PC to end Lolth's rule over the drow and free the drow from the underdark, so that they can return to the surface and sing under the stars with their elven fellows, as they did back before the sundering of the elves. When this was accompanied - Lolth was killed, the Abyss sealed, and the drow led out of the underdark - this was success in the straightforward procedural sense you describe. But it also had a richer emotional resonance, as the table shares in the sense of this character having successfully led his people to liberation.The second example: the PCs were exploring a ruined temple, and confronted a large cave bear. Instead of killing it, they chose to tame it. After this was achieved, one of the players said "I feel really good about not having killed that bear". Again, this is a richer emotion than simply success at a game-play goal.In my mind, the two examples I've given contrast with the default mission given by a tavern quest giver, where the PCs might be rescuing the princess or recovering the widget, but have no emotional investment in the goal outside of procedural success, because the backstory and stakes have been authored by the GM with no connection to the PCs as developed and played by the players. Another way of trying to convey the contrast is that I sometimes see the notion of "sidequest" used to contrast with the real (GM-established) focus of play; whereas when I think of characters and action, the player-driven quest is the focus of play, and so the notion of "sidequest" has no work to do.I think that purely inner-oriented play probably requires more skill on the part of the participants eg to evoke those inner states via narration and performance, and so is probably going to be less common in RPGing. The closest I recall having come to this in my own RPGing is years ago now, in a Rolemaster game. One of the two main wizard PCs had suffered a series of terrible setbacks: falling down the side of the Crystalmist Mountains after being knocked from a flying skiff by a giant's boulder; killed by a demon that had been summoned by his ally but then escaped control; etc, etc. He had also become addicted to a magic-enhancing drug (via RM's addiction rules), which had required him to sell his house and in the end betray his home city for money and a prestigious official appointment. He was finally getting his life back together, in significant part because of a relationship that developed with an NPC elf, when she was cut in half by another escaped summoned demon. At which point the PC collapsed back into despair and alcoholism, until the other (demon summoning) wizard PC was able to berate him into action.Mechanically, the game supported this via its rules for Depression criticals and for social interaction. I don't think 4e (for instance) would support this sort of inner-oriented play in the same way, because it doesn't have these sorts of mechanical devices. I'm expecting my Burning Wheel game potentially to lead to some of this sort of thing.I agree that there are some players who lack goals and/or don't really want to make choices, but would rather be led through a plot. In those contexts, roleplaying probably doesn't mean much more than voices and mannerisms. (Also perhaps tactical choices in combat.) But I don't think of that as the essence of RPGing.I agree that player skill is an issue. After the first session of Burning Wheel with my 4e group, one of the players commented that it is more demanding on the players than 4e.Rolling the dice when the GM tells you to, and otherwise generally going along with the GM's pre-authored plot, is probably the lowest-skill form of RPGing.</blockquote>

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