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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8141996" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't know what darkbard has in mind: but in the real world, I live in a place that is appealing to me, and I associate with people who have common interests with me. And I don't achieve those states of affairs by walking up to "the external world" and hitting play on a narration device.In the real world, word of my deeds travels - via word-of-mouth, via the internet, sometimes via radio or TV - and this brings people into my orbit who are interested in getting to know me, or working with me.In the real world, I cast votes and answer opinion surveys and sign petitions and write letters to the editor, and all these things shape the actions of actors who - in various ways and for various reasons - care about the opinion of those affected by or concerned with the things they do.In the real world, given that I participate in a market economy, every purchasing decision I make ultimately influences a producer in his/her production decisions.In the real world, where tradition and inherited practice continue to be a part of life (dress and language are too obvious examples), every choice I make in respect of these matters shapes the tradition (perhaps confirming it, perhaps challenging or altering it) and this feeds through to the behaviour of others and takes us all the way back to my first paragraph, about the non-contingent connection between the conditions in which I live my life and my interests and preferences.None of these processes in the real world is remotely comparable to, or resembling of, a GM drawing a map and writing up a key. A RPG in which all I can do, as a player, is trigger the GM to tell me what she has written up - or, if nothing has been written, to ad lib something as if it had been written up - is a type of storytelling practice. It's a more structured version of the kids saying, "Dad, tell us a story about XYZ". This has very little in common with the rest of how I live or experience my life.The only merit I can see in having the main focus of play be the activity of triggering the GM to tell me his/her notes is that I, as a player, might work something out.Here's an example of what I have in mind:A few weeks ago I ran a session like this for my family - one of my daughters wanted to do a murder mystery for her birthday.I adapted a murder scenario from an old Traveller module, and wrote up some characters (one for each other family member, plus a couple for their entourages, plus a small number of important NPCs whom I played). There was no action resolution in any mechanical sense - the players described what their PCs were doing, and who they were talking to, and I delivered up information as seemed appropriate (eg what they found if they searched a stateroom; what a NPC said if they spoke to him/her; etc).This is an example of puzzle-solving: the players' goal is to acquire enough information to be able to infer to the hidden bit of my notes (ie whodunnit). It is a different experience from watching an episode of Death in Paradise or The Mentalist, as there is the first-person description element to it. But it doesn't really involve very much more agency.(One difference from those shows is that they are scripted to try and occlude the audience's access to the relevant information, whereas in our murder mystery I was desperately trying to shovel information out the door. A better comparison might be to reading The Eleventh Hour.)</blockquote>

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