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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8152161" data-attributes="member: 42582">No. The argument is that we want games in which the players can contribute to the shared fiction. And that there are very-well established techniques, mechanical frameworks and principles that support that.Another part of the argument is that there are many RPGers, especially those who are familiar mostly with D&D and its derivatives, who appear to freak out whenever those techniques, frameworks and principles are put forward: I've got in mind in particular responses to such components of 4e D&D as skill challenge resolution, magic item wishlists, player-authored quests and even Come and Get It.The reasons for that response seem to be pretty consistent: any principle or technique or framework that allows the players to exercise control over the shared fiction necessarily limits the GM's control over it. So skill challenges limit the capacity of the GM to unilaterally establish consequences (especially failures); magic item wishlists limit the capacity of the GM to control the fiction of discoveries as well as the mechanics of PC build; CaGI limits the ability of the GM to unilaterally control the positioning, in combat, of NPCs and monsters.If people want the GM to be able to exercise that sort of unilateral control well they can knock themselves out. But it makes no sense to assert, at the same time, that it is the player who is engaged in authorship.</blockquote>