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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8139007" data-attributes="member: 16814">Yes, this is what I've been saying for two posts.  Glad we agreeI think this is a poor default assumption.  The only way that you could consider this a default assumption is if you're also assume a low-agency game where players are often denied sufficient information until they've asked all the right questions or performed the right actions to learn enough that they can overcome the puzzle the GM has posed, usually in form of deadly dungeons.  This kind of play doesn't lend itself to deep characterization overly much.This is imputing more to the Actor stance that what is presented in either the short definition I quoted or the longer discussion that birthed that post.  There, actor stance is about evoking the character to the maximum amount when given a choice for that character.  You've added some choice where the actor changes the character to make a better performance, but that's not evidence by the concepts as presented.  In fact, that appears to be more Director stance -- changing the character to get a better performance outcome -- than actor stance, which is focused on faithfully portraying the character.Again, actor, as discussed even by the author of the definition I posted above, clearly speak to Author stance as portraying the character faithfully when given a choice the character has made.  IC, fraught as it is as a concept, does the same.  There's not much daylight, here.  You seem to be implying a class of outside influences that affect Actor stance but not IC stance, but this seems like an attempt at separation by assertion rather than an development of concepts from actually noted influences.  Actor stance, as a concept, is too polluted by the source metaphor of the stage, and IC is just pure idealization.  And, I say this as someone that goes to lengths to be in character and think as my character does (which has lead to some surprising moments in games).  I disagree that there's some magical position from which play occurs that sets off my acting out my character from someone else acting out their character.  The only functional difference I see between this formulation of Actor stance and IC stance is where and how choices are made:  IC includes decision making while Actor expressly does not.  This absolutely tells me that they've mixed up "stances," such as they are, with decision making approaches.  And, so, we end up with trying to eke out a difference between acting out your character and acting out your character because we want to hang the decision making on one but not the other (because it messes with the stage analogy this all springs from).  It's a distinction without difference.</blockquote>

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