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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7584172" data-attributes="member: 42582">[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], I'm picking up on just one aspect of your post.A choice requires a motivation - the standard analysis is that an action is the result of a belief plus a desire.In the terminology of "stances", as coined by Ron Edwards, the motivation comes either from the player ("real person's priorities") or is found within the character. If the character's motivations are not established, then no motivation can be found within the character (as per my example of Spot upthread). Hence there can be no actor stance.It's not a complicated point, and obsessing over the words that Edwards uses to state his ideas doesn't change it.Edwards does not consider "Id"-driven play, which he expressly connects to the classic D&D paradigm, to be a paradigm of actor stance. He sees it as pawn stance pure-and-simple. That makes no sense. The character can't author itself - it's a fiction. The motivation had to come from somewhere. Either it flows from the established charcter - eg one knows, given how REH establishes Conan as distrusting and despising the insipid corruption of civilisation, that Conan would ready himself against treachery when entering a town - or else it is authored on the basis of a real-world priority (eg "I think it would be cool to play a woods-y guy").Author stance doesn't become actor stance because the player doesn't reflect on his/her priorities, or because it's done really quickly!</blockquote>

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