You seem to be trying to elide, or even deny, the contrast between framing and outcomes.
My view is that, when we talk about how fiction is established in RPGing, this contrast is absolutely crucial. Without it, we can't talk meaningfully about the contribution to the fiction made by (i) the players declaring actions for their PCs, and (ii) those actions being resolved by application of the action resolution rules.
That's not to say that every RPG draws the distinction everywhere that it might. Indeed, the fact that 5e doesn't draw the distinction when it comes to recovery is what gets the OP of this thread off the ground: 5e players can declare actions whose outcome is that ingame time has passed, their PCs have rested, and so now the GM has to frame a new scene which the players can engage (via their PCs) with full resources. What the OP, together with subsequent posts, points out is that 5e permits the GM to add, as a further outcome of the players' successful action, that the BBEG has been able to regroup and/or marshall resources.
But this feature of 5e is a contingent one. It's not inherent in RPGing. We can see that when we notice RPG systems that draw the framing/outcome distinction even when it comes to recovery: 4e D&D does this implicitly (in my view); Burning Wheel, Cortex+ Heroic, Prince Valiant and 13th Age all do so expressly (though each in a different sort of way).
You decided the motivations of the NPCs; if you know your players, you will know which of them thy are likely to oppose, which they're likely to agree with. You decide how to describe the NPCs, their attitude, their behaviours, what they say. You will probably have an idea what the player will find agreeable, and what they will not. You're influencing the players all the time, it is literally impossible to not do that.
NPC design including motivations, goals, and what they are currently up to is probably the most significant part of my prep in most games I run. I just consider it part of good scenario design. Once that's set up playing it out with integrity is just part of running the sandbox. It only becomes story advocacy when you start making decisions for those NPCs based on what you think would make for a better story.
I don't think @Campbell is saying that when he GMs he doesn't want to influence play. After all, as a GM he is a participant and not an observer! (Maybe even observers influence play; but participants clearly set out to do so - that's more-or-less what it means to participate.)
He is repudiating a particular sort of influence, namely, "story advocacy" or "story curation" which means (at least as @Campbell uses those phrases) making decisions about what happens next by having regard to desired story outcomes. He has pointed to other ways decisions can be made about what happens next which support him in that repudiation; @chaochou did the same not too far upthread. The range of methods - not all of which any given GM is going to deploy in every game let alone at every moment of adjudication - include relying on the mechanics, drawing upon player contributions and being faithful to one's prep and to the established fiction.
Here's a different approach to NPCs from the one that @Campbell has described, which still allows GM adjudication without story advocacy. I'm quoting Paul Czege:
I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this. And like Scott's "Point A to Point B" model says, the outcome of the scene is not preconceived.
Here is the "Point A to Point B model" that Czege endorses, from earlier in the same thread:
There are two points to a scene - Point A, where the PCs start the scene, and Point B, where they end up. Most games let the players control some aspect of Point A, and then railroad the PCs to point B. Good narrativism will reverse that by letting the GM create a compelling Point A, and let the players dictate what Point B is (ie, there is no Point B prior to the scene beginning).
5e D&D allows the players to control aspects of Point A - hence the whole discussion about what do to when the players establish that their PCs take a long rest. Strongly scene-frame play gives authority over this to the GM. Of course the GM will have regard to what is interesting in choosing point A - as well as the sort of thematic stuff that Czege talks about the GM might also have regard to what will challenge the players in their technical play (this is not a big part of scene framing in Prince Valiant; it is a big part of scene-framing in 4e D&D). But choosing stuff that is thematically interesting is not dictating a story outcome; any more than choosing stuff that is technically interesting is not dictating any particular course of "skilled play".
Of course Czege's approach to NPCs will only work if the system generates obligations on the GM to establish the fiction that retroactively justifies outcomes - systems where I've used Czege's approach quite a bit are in 4e D&D (with skill challenges as the overarching resolution tool) and in Classic Traveller (with its reaction table as the overarching resolution tool). In Burning Wheel and Prince Valiant I use an approach more like the one Campbell describes, because that is a better fit for those systems given their different mechanical features (both have social conflict resolution that works best when it's already established what it is that a NPC wants out of a situation).
Isn't there something in PbtA (or maybe Blades) about the GM "disclaiming decision?" This sounds something like that--or a GM picking targets randomly or something, or maybe the Recharge mechanic on some monster attacks in 5E. I can certainly see picking the actions randomly if there's an insta-kill attack available.
In AW, its in the (oddly enough) disclaim decision-making session which basically amounts to (i) look at it through the eyes of your NPC and act, (ii) put it in the players hands, (iii) create a clock and act, (iv) make it a stakes question and follow the rules/moves to find out what happens when it comes up.
In DW, its in the Custom Moves section (you've seen this in our play multiple times).
In Blades, its in the Fortune Roll section (build a dice pool or opposing dice pool based on the relevant factors and find out what happens).
You seem to be trying to elide, or even deny, the contrast between framing and outcomes.
My view is that, when we talk about how fiction is established in RPGing, this contrast is absolutely crucial. Without it, we can't talk meaningfully about the contribution to the fiction made by (i) the players declaring actions for their PCs, and (ii) those actions being resolved by application of the action resolution rules.
That's not to say that every RPG draws the distinction everywhere that it might. Indeed, the fact that 5e doesn't draw the distinction when it comes to recovery is what gets the OP of this thread off the ground: 5e players can declare actions whose outcome is that ingame time has passed, their PCs have rested, and so now the GM has to frame a new scene which the players can engage (via their PCs) with full resources. What the OP, together with subsequent posts, points out is that 5e permits the GM to add, as a further outcome of the players' successful action, that the BBEG has been able to regroup and/or marshall resources.
But this feature of 5e is a contingent one. It's not inherent in RPGing. We can see that when we notice RPG systems that draw the framing/outcome distinction even when it comes to recovery: 4e D&D does this implicitly (in my view); Burning Wheel, Cortex+ Heroic, Prince Valiant and 13th Age all do so expressly (though each in a different sort of way).
This is not true in all RPGs. I think even in 5e D&D there are character abilities (eg background features) that make this proposition false.
I don't think @Campbell is saying that when he GMs he doesn't want to influence play. After all, as a GM he is a participant and not an observer! (Maybe even observers influence play; but participants clearly set out to do so - that's more-or-less what it means to participate.)
He is repudiating a particular sort of influence, namely, "story advocacy" or "story curation" which means (at least as @Campbell uses those phrases) making decisions about what happens next by having regard to desired story outcomes. He has pointed to other ways decisions can be made about what happens next which support him in that repudiation; @chaochou did the same not too far upthread. The range of methods - not all of which any given GM is going to deploy in every game let alone at every moment of adjudication - include relying on the mechanics, drawing upon player contributions and being faithful to one's prep and to the established fiction.
Here's a different approach to NPCs from the one that @Campbell has described, which still allows GM adjudication without story advocacy. I'm quoting Paul Czege:
I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this. And like Scott's "Point A to Point B" model says, the outcome of the scene is not preconceived.
Here is the "Point A to Point B model" that Czege endorses, from earlier in the same thread:
There are two points to a scene - Point A, where the PCs start the scene, and Point B, where they end up. Most games let the players control some aspect of Point A, and then railroad the PCs to point B. Good narrativism will reverse that by letting the GM create a compelling Point A, and let the players dictate what Point B is (ie, there is no Point B prior to the scene beginning).
5e D&D allows the players to control aspects of Point A - hence the whole discussion about what do to when the players establish that their PCs take a long rest. Strongly scene-frame play gives authority over this to the GM. Of course the GM will have regard to what is interesting in choosing point A - as well as the sort of thematic stuff that Czege talks about the GM might also have regard to what will challenge the players in their technical play (this is not a big part of scene framing in Prince Valiant; it is a big part of scene-framing in 4e D&D). But choosing stuff that is thematically interesting is not dictating a story outcome; any more than choosing stuff that is technically interesting is not dictating any particular course of "skilled play".
Of course Czege's approach to NPCs will only work if the system generates obligations on the GM to establish the fiction that retroactively justifies outcomes - systems where I've used Czege's approach quite a bit are in 4e D&D (with skill challenges as the overarching resolution tool) and in Classic Traveller (with its reaction table as the overarching resolution tool). In Burning Wheel and Prince Valiant I use an approach more like the one Campbell describes, because that is a better fit for those systems given their different mechanical features (both have social conflict resolution that works best when it's already established what it is that a NPC wants out of a situation).
I'm going to save the bulk of the content of this post for the Win Con and Thematic Skilled Play post I'm going to do, but this is particularly apt to what you're talking about directly above.
In @darkbard and his wife's game, is it just some odd coincidence that the End of Session pretty much always looks like the below for both characters?
* Did you resolve a Bond? Yes. Mark xp and create a new Bond.
* Did you fullfill your Alignment statement at least once? Yes. Mark xp.
* Did we learn something new and important about the world? Yes. Mark xp.
* Did we overcome a notable monster or enemy? Yes. Mark xp.
No. It is not some odd coincidence. Why? Because these statements of Theme and Premise are foundational for play and impose an obligation upon the GM to make this session orbit around these things.
So the player's oblige me > feeds into my obstacle/conflict/NPC framing > feeds into player orientation + decision + action > move resolution > feeds back into my framing (rinse/repeat until the conflict comes to a close).
Its no coincidence that they faced an alien menace last session. Its no coincidence that their longest standing cohort was put into a dangerous position to be bold, act on his newfound religious zeal, and risk (and give) his life for another. Its no coincidence that darkbard's Paladin was put into dangerous spots that required him to step up and risk himself terribly to protect his allies. Its no coincidence that the alien menace faced and defeated restored the Wizard's earth elemental pet/friend/cohort. Its no coincidence that the Wizard was put into a position to use the failing magical fabric of the world to protect her allies (with a pretty huge use of Protective Counterspell and a creative use of Mage Hand).
These are all things that oblige GM framing and then we let the marriage of Thematic Play and Skilled Play decide whether Dirk the Bold protects Memna's Thorn (Rose) and in-the-doing if he lives or dies...if Freda the Earth Elemental is restored by the restored Magical Tapestry of the world...if Maraqli the Wizard protects others with his magic...if Alastor the Paladin's religious invocations challenges his foes, drawing attacks to him...and if his intercessions to take the blows work (and how well the work upon him)...and what Maraqli's ability to actually see magic and illunimate lore reveals...and if Alastor's heroic charge emboldens his allies to fight and defeat their mythical alien foe...and if the burdens he has chosen (Debilities instead of damage) become to weighty and undermine him.
And we discover that Force magic deployed through a barrier between worlds opens a rift that terrible powers of unfathomable reach can use to access their world...and that Alastor's goddess has reach even into the Ethereal Plane to guide their Perilous Journey.
All of this stuff can be systemitized, can oblige and constrain GMs in their conflict/obstacle/NPC framing, and the upshot of it can be consistently (every session) on-theme play + consistently challenging play + the requirements of players to marry Thematic Play + Skillful Play + everyone gets to play to find out + no lead storyteller/scenario designer + no GM curation of content (meaning unfettered, unbridled framing and the impetus and action of dictating outputs of any instance of action resolution or of the accreted sequence of actions and their attendant chain of resolution).
Just an endless stream of thematically framed conflict > player orientation/decision/action/resolution with Team GM vs Team PC and we find out what happens and reflect as the dust settles.
If you are choosing on SP, then you are not judging on the basis of climax.
If you are choosing on SI, then you do not care about the long rest recharge: there is no problem in sight here.
The OP asks you to feel troubled about choosing based on SP because of concern for a non-SP goal, or troubled about choosing on SI because of concern for a non-SI goal. Each choice only takes the form of a dilemma when judged by the standards of the other context.
It seems to me that, in saying this, you are simply restating a part of the OP.
The OP states an additional couple of things: that D&D play has traditionally involved both priorities, and from time to time has presented itself as able to satisfy both of them together.
And the OP asks a question: if in fact we take it as given that you can't do both at once, which approach do you prefer in your 5e D&D play?
The issue being that you assume that dilemma in your argument. You've already said you cannot do skilled play and story curation at the same time, this is the foundational tenet of your position -- that it is an error if you do so. So, when other people say that there's a tension between story curation and skilled play, you jump in and so no there isn't because you can't mix the two? Why can't you mix the two? Because they are in contention with each other.
I mean, you're arguing with the basic tenet of your own statements, here. You cannot assume the two things are so antithetical that they cannot even exist at the same time and then turn around and argue that there's no conflict between them.
Perhaps relatedly - I'll put it here anyway - for me there is a question of a possibility versus a necessity. I feel forced to concede that a group in SI mode could possibly have a story in mind that for whatever reason they refused to adapt to the outcomes of the game mechanics. That could be extreme - a TPK, but it doesn't suit their story so the mechanical outcomes producing the TPK are modified.
A point I have hopefully being emphatic about is that an imposed story is not a gameful element. Emergent stories are gameful. I see RPG mechanics in terms of player leverage or fiat over the shared narrative. With a fireball I can say - creatures in this area are more likely to be discounted. Sometimes RPGs offer process rules for shaping or informing the narrative - an example might be the fronts in AW or IIRC some rules in Ars Magica. It seems to me that is a fruitful area for future game design.
So although I accept that a group can ignore mechanical outcomes they dislike - for any reason including no reason - in order to impose whatever outcomes they like, I have seen zero examples where that was necessary.
I mean, if you do not change things in a story curation mode, you have a failure -- you've failed to create the exciting conflict that this mode of play prizes if you do not adjust things to account for the rest.
This is the conflict here. You have a choice in the OP -- to change things or not change things due to the rest. If you don't, you're, as you note, holding to skilled play imperatives because the idea of changing things to make for an exciting climax is not the point. If you do, then you're curating the story, because you're discounting the play in favor of creating an exciting climax. You have to make a choice, and you cannot choose an option that supports both because they are in conflict with each other.
Again, I believe they are not necessarily in conflict. Hence there is no need to prioritise one over the other. Accepting of course that team-SI might still decide to do so. Maybe an analogy could shed light. If I am asked to prioritise between a choice of pears or agile software development practice, because I'm told that for Joe these are in conflict, I am like - wtf? Of course, I accept there where we are with games today, we see a lot of Joe.
I'm not clear what you mean by gameful-narrative. I found your explanation of gameful to be a bit odd. "Gameful" means playing with rules, but that's space already occupied by "game" so I followed your reference. There is no mention of "gameful" in the work you cited, "Rules of Play" by Salen and Zimmerman. Do you have a better source?
Perhaps - The Gameful World - to whom Zimmerman is a contributor. Gamefulness is sometimes associated with gamification. I use it to mean very simply - full-of-game - being part of, coming from, arising from game qua game. Play > playful. Game > gameful. There are a few gaps in the language that force one to jargon terms when discussing games.
Anyway, continuing with your explanation as given, gameful narrative would then be playing with rules and narrative? Not sure what narrative is doing here. Your earlier post seems to indicated that gameful narrative and emergent story are the same thing, but I'm not clear that this is so, or what new work this term is doing.
I see games as an evolution of what narrative can be, just as movies were an evolution of what narrative can be. Games are the medium, not the story. One ought to be able to just say "games" and be done, as we can say "movies" and know we are speaking of a medium for narrative. There isn't a consensus on this so whichever way you come down on will find support.
While I can't disagree, I don't think I like the idea that scenario writers would intentionally leave something that could either A) encourage (arguably) bad GMing or B) cause problems for a GM.
So based on the sequence of posts between you and @hawkeyefan, the suggestion here is that leaving it open/ambiguous/unspecified in the scenario exactly what resources Strahd might call upon is creating a temptation/stumbling block that might lead to bad GMing.
My short answer to that is I don't agree. A bit like Paul Czege (per my quote not far upthread) leaves the motivations of NPCs loose, so he can establish them during play to retroactively justify the mechanically-determined unfolding of events, so I think there can be considerable advantages to leaving Strahd's resources only loosely specified.
First, this permits adjudication exactly parallel to Czege's - in response to action declarations in the confrontation with Strahd, resources accrue or ablate to reflect the mechanically-determined unfolding of events. This would make the most sense in a skill-challenge scenario, and I know 5e doesn't have those by default, but I would expect something similar could be done. Here's an example of the sort of thing I have in mind, sblocked for length, from a 4e actual play report (rather than Strahd, it was Torog):
After getting distracted by this and that, including a detour via Mal Arundak on the Abyss, they finally made it to the Soul Abattoir, having just reached 25th level.
Although the Soul Abattoir is described in very general terms in the Underdark book, little detail is given. I located it at the end of icy tunnels running through the Shadowdark, on the far shore of the Soul Slough into which flows Lathan, the River of Souls. The "liquid souls" flowed under the ice and stone to the icy, Vault-of-the-Drow-style cavern containing the Soul Abattoir. The Abattoir itself was a series of buildings into which souls "flowed" in a fashion analogous to rivers. Inside the buildings the streams of souls were directed through Torog's various machines, which extracted soul energy from by way of torture, converting that energy into "darkspikes" from which Torog could then draw power by driving them into his body.
The destruction of the Soul Abattoir was run mostly as a skill challenge, but with a combat a little over halfway through (and some of this is reposted from other threads):
The entrance to the Soul Abattoir, at which the PCs had arrived, was an icy tunnel floor, ending at a cliff overlooking the cavern - the river of souls was flowing some way beneath the ice, and flowed out from the base of the entrance cliff into Torog's various machines;
The drow sorcerer and tiefling paladin flew to the bottom of the cliff, where the paladin blew his Fire Horn to render the ice more susceptible to heat, while the drow cast Flame Spiral to melt some of the ice, and then cast Wall of Water to block the flow of souls (check-wise, this was an Arcana check by the player of the drow, with a buff from the melting of the ice and use of the wall);
The paladin and invoker then headed to the largest building, at the other end of the cavern, while the cleric-ranger on his flying carpet provided archery cover and the sorcerer flew above them maintaining concentration on his wall spell (check-wise, this was an Acro check for the archer and the sorcerer, and an Intimidate check from the paladin assisted by the invoker to make their way through Torog's minions);
Once they got to the far building, the paladin and invoker sought the intervention of the Raven Queen to redirect the flow of souls directly to the Shadowfell rather than via Torog's infernal machines (one failed and one successful Religion check; the failure led to damage from a combination of psychic and necrotic energies generated by the suffering souls);
Meanwhile, with the flow of souls stopped, the fighter fought his way through the other (lesser) buildings, destroying the machinery inside them (Athletic check buffed by expenditure of a close burst encounter power to fight through the minions from building to building, and Dungeoneering to wreck the machinery);
When the PCs had all regrouped at the furthest (and most important) building resolution then switched from skill challenge mode to tactical combat mode, as they stormed the building and fought with Torog's shrivers plus a death titan;
After the (very challenging) fight, during which the last machine was turned off by the sorcerer (the player made a successful Thievery check as a standard action once the PCs had finally fought their way along the central gantry that ran above the pool of souls), the skill challenge then resumed as the Soul Abattoir itself started to collapse;
The ranger and sorcerer flew out of the cavern (successful Acro checks) while the paladin ran out beneath them, but was struck by falling rocks (failed Aths check, making the 3-person group check a success altogether as a majority succeeded, but costing the paladin damage for the failure);
The fighter shielded the invoker (Endurance check) as the latter held off the powerful soul energy while the others made their escape (Religion check);
The invoker noticed that Vecna was trying to take control of the soul energy via the invoker's imp familiar that has the Eye of Vecna implanted in it (as GM, I had decided that this was the moment when Vecna would try and steal the souls for himself; mechanically I asked the player to make an Insight check, which was successful);
The invoker, having to choose between two of his patrons (he is a very pluralist divine PC) stopped Vecna redirecting the souls away from the Raven Queen, making sure that they flowed to her instead (in play, at this point I asked the player whether his PC - who at this point still had the erupting soul energy under his mystical control - whether he was going to let the souls flow to Vecna, or rather direct them to the Raven Queen; the player though for probably about 20 seconds, and then replied "The Raven Queen"; I decided that, on the basis of the earlier Religion check with no further check required, and I also decided that Vecna in anger shut down the offending imp via his Eye);
The invoker and fighter then ran out of the collapsing cavern behind their companions, the invoker being shielded from falling rocks by the burly dwarf fighter (Athletics checks, with the fighter doing well enough to grant an "aid another" bonus to the invoker, so from memory neither took any damage).
At the end of the session, I made it clear to the players that Torog was after them.
<snip>
I had also told the players that Torog, deprived of dark spikes, would weaken rapidly over the course of a confrontation: to be manifested mechanically in the form of a d8 escalation die (ie a die start at 0 but then counting up by 1 each round) granting a bonus to both attacks and damage for the PCs.
Isn't there something in PbtA (or maybe Blades) about the GM "disclaiming decision?" This sounds something like that--or a GM picking targets randomly or something, or maybe the Recharge mechanic on some monster attacks in 5E. I can certainly see picking the actions randomly if there's an insta-kill attack available.
Page 115 of the rulebook has this account of the principle Sometimes, disclaim decision-making
In order to play to find out what happens, you’ll need to pass decision-making off sometimes. Whenever something comes up that you’d prefer not to decide by personal whim and will, don’t. The game gives you four key tools you can use to disclaim responsibility: you can put it in your NPCs’ hands, you can put it in the players’ hands, you can create a countdown, or you can make it a stakes question.
Say that there’s an NPC whose life the players have come to care about, for instance, and you don’t feel right about just deciding when and whether to kill her off:
You can (1) put it in your NPCs’ hands. Just ask yourself, in this circumstance, is Birdie really going to kill her? If the answer’s yes, she dies. If it’s no, she lives. Yes, this leaves the decision in your hands, but it gives you a way to make it with integrity.
You can (2) put it in the players’ hands. For instance, “Dou’s been shot, yeah, she’s shuddering and going into shock. What do you do?” If the character helps her, she lives; if the character doesn’t or can’t, she dies. You could even create a custom move for it, if you wanted, to serve the exact circumstances. . . .
You can (3) create a countdown. See the countdown section in the fronts chapter, page 143. Just sketch a quick countdown clock. Mark 9:00 with “she gets hurt,” 12:00 with “she dies.” Tick it up every time she goes into danger, and jump to 9:00 if she’s in the line of fire. This leaves it in your hands, but gives you a considered and concrete plan, instead of leaving it to your whim.
Or you can (4) make it a stakes question. See the stakes section in the fronts chapter, page 145.“Will Dou live through all this?” Now you’ve promised yourself not to just answer it yourself, yes or no, she lives or she dies. Whenever it comes up, you must give the answer over to your NPCs, to the players’ characters, to the game’s moves, or to a countdown, no cheating.
Pages 145-46 add:
Stakes should be concrete, absolute, irrevocable in their consequences. People’s lives. Maybe not necessarily their lives or deaths, at least not every time, but always materially significant changes to their lives. Resolving the outstanding question means that nothing will ever be the same for them.
They should also be things you’re genuinely interested in finding out, not in deciding. It’s the central act of discipline that MCing Apocalypse World requires: when you write a question as a stake, you’re committing to not answer it yourself. You’re committing to let the game’s fiction’s own internal logic and causality, driven by the players’ characters, answer it.
That’s the discipline and also the reward. Your control over your NPCs’ fates is absolute. They’re your little toys, you can do anything to them you choose. Raise them up and mow them down. Disclaiming responsibility for the two or three of them you like best is a relief. And when you write down a question you’re genuinely interested in, letting the game’s fiction answer it is uniquely satisfying.
This is not a principle that overlaps very much with the randomness of B/X morale, or the attack roll for Aliens that @hawkeyefan described, except in the sense that all are about non-curated ways of determining outcomes. The AW principle is a very specific way of not curating outcomes while also relentlessly pursuing thematically salient, emotionally intense play. Something that is much closer to the B/X approach is the way persuasion and combat resolution work in The Dying Earth RPG: hijinks and randomness are the order of the day!
Before I put together a post about system + narrative cohesion, I need to make sure I'm clear on the parameters of your "gameful narrative" usage.
So far as I can tell, this was your answer to my question. But its still not clear to me what the upshot and what the limits of this are. Are you meaning:
The way games wed Theme and Premise to Skill which, working in concert, create a process and structure of play which facilitates an emergent narrative that is an inevitable, coherent outgrowth of that marriage.
Is this what you mean? Because if this is what you mean, I have talked about this plenty in the last many, many years. But I don't use the term "Gameful" or "Gameful Narrative" to express this. I have used the term "systemitized."
Systemitized is a reasonable way to describe it. I like also your "a process and structure of play which facilitates an emergent narrative that is an inevitable, coherent outgrowth of that marriage." There is an open question as to what extent that is possible, of course.
We have to remember that players enter the game from outside, and that the meaning of rules is far from settled. Players grasp the rules in varying ways and uphold them to varying degrees: an inevitability given their external contexts.
So what I might add to your definition is the matter of goals and acceptance. Players in GN mode accept mechanical outcomes of play. They don't adopt goals that conflict with those outcomes because such goals would have no meaning in the accepted context. They are open to what happens next.
And if I am correct, can you confirm to me how you feel that D&D 5e is that game. Because I know a lot of games that intimately wed Theme and Premise to Skill...and D&D 5e is NOT that game (by design...it couldn't be that game and achieve the heterogenous play that it sought...and attained by dent of its successful design). D&D 5e has intentionally designed in holes all over the place in it’s “marry theme/premise to skill” game. Where those holes are the 5e answer is <insert GM> (again, intentionally designed this way). In those other game's "the system's say" (another phrase you'll see me use a lot) is final. Its not a mutable characteristic that you can toggle off and <insert GM>. Its an immutable, constraining feature of play (on all participants, GM included...or even primary).
It is the mode of play, rather than the game, that is decisive. I could take B/X and play it in SI mode (I wouldn't, but I could). No matter how much I wanted B/X to be SP in that case, it will be an SI game. Again, we have to remember that players grasp and uphold the rules: the game does not play itself.
Before I put a lot of effort into a large, clarifying post on this subject (and especially in light of your most recent posts to Ovinomancer which, I feel, further serve to obscure your intent/meaning/positioning so that I'm not clear what series of ideas you're putting forth...it almost seems like you're now clarifying that you're claiming multiple positions in some sort of Devil's Advocate stance? There is a lot of half (but not full)-Steelmanning of several incompatible positions in what you're saying).
It is more that my position is hard to find the right words for and depends on a context for the ideas being developed that is itself neither settled nor easy to summarise. It's still hard for me in particular, because I'm bad at explaining things. What I find in these discussions is that very often all the initial posts just find out what the interesting concerns of the OP really are. They might then be disregarded in terms of developing any arguments. We then often run into matters of definition that need to be bridged.
So with your OP, am I 100% clear what the key concerns are? I think there is a concern whether a goal of SP might sometimes conflict with a goal of SI. There is - or ought to be - a concern whether said goals necessarily conflict. There are definitions that must be agreed for SP and SI (and consequences of those definitions, such as my contention that SI is not gaming, and therefore there is nothing to resolve that can matter to gaming: the mistake was to connect SP with SI in the first place. It's like worrying about the price of tea in Kuo-toa when deciding if you like the flavour of pears: they're not connected even if your concern about the flavour of pears happens to distract your attention from the price of tea.)
EDIT - And before I put together a large post on Win Cons in games, can you clarify why you feel that "Skilled Play (as its been constituted in this thread) is a chimera?" I've given a breakdown of Skilled Play in the various iterations of D&D. Further, I've given a very specific definition and explained at length why "Boardgaming" is necessary but not sufficient (because it doesn't include the "shared imagined space" component that is part and parcel of Skilled Play in TTRPGing). I don't see a disagreement in this thread from the primary participants, yet you continue to put forthe "its a chimera" as a response. So can you explain that (so I can comment before I put together a large post on Win Cons...I don't want to have to keep going back and forth or put something large together only to have the inevitable "I disagree with the premise!" plot-line emerge).
The crucial comments came up in another thread. Posters claimed that some game mechanics cannot be used for SP. I feel it is undermining to any common definition of SP if some mechanics will be included and others not. What is the filter for that? References were made to elision, but game mechanics always elide: what is real in a game is the concrete mechanic.
An example is that mage hand and unseen servant were conceded status as SP - along with 10' poles - while ability checks were not. I think both are game mechanics for players to avail themselves of skillfully. I asked if SP equates with addressing game as boardgame: that still hasn't been concretely answered or rebutted (or it has, but in a fashion or post that I have not noticed!) If it is more than boardgame, what is that more?
And this is where we came to win cons. We explored an idea that winning is beside the point - games must have goals. At least one poster felt winning and losing essential to games, but how does one win or lose SI in a measurable fashion? Is the group presumed to score their theatrics? Might they have perverse and whimsical goals? If they are perverse and whimsical, might those goals sometimes put losing off the table and look quite different from winning? And then, how can such SI goals possibly matter to SP? All those sorts of questions. It was never answered if the supposition is that games must have goals, and that Wuthering Heights is a game, but Wuthering Heights does not have goals. Do posters still feel that anything that can't be won isn't a game? If so, how can they connect SP and SI in any meaningful way?!
It seems to me that, in saying this, you are simply restating a part of the OP.
The OP states an additional couple of things: that D&D play has traditionally involved both priorities, and from time to time has presented itself as able to satisfy both of them together.
And the OP asks a question: if in fact we take it as given that you can't do both at once, which approach do you prefer in your 5e D&D play?
What I'm most interested in from the OP is that I feel it raises a deeper question, about games as narrative.
The SP / SI division comes with a premise that games are one thing and stories another. My approach is to question the premise. (I know that I do that badly, and in a very roundabout way!) If games and stories are the same thing, then what is the conflict? The conflict might instead be more about seeking to tell a linear story using a non-linear medium. If they are then different things, then the question is trivial (non-pejoratively, only in the sense that it is easily answered and of little consequence.)
According to some definitions, SP is based on a premise that playing a game can be separated from telling a story. However, some posters rule out many ordinary game mechanics as having a role in SP. Others describe it in a way that sounds less about the game mechanics, and more about probing a DM about descriptive and consequential assumptions and consistencies in their imagined reality. But... if SP is not really about game mechanics, or not all the mechanics, then doesn't it start to look somewhat like SI?!
That is a very interesting mystery! How does one recognise just the right game mechanics? I suggest that perhaps it is the mode in which the game is addressed, and not the game, that decides. If so, 5e is neither better nor worse than any other system.
Thanks for the clarification/s about what "disclaiming decision-making" means in a PbtA context. I thought I remembered there being something to the effect of it being OK to effectively flip a coin if one was stuck at a decision-point, but that A) may not be the case and B) is clearly not what is meant by "disclaiming decision-making."
But I don't agree that the point about Strahd in the module is beside the point. Because I think that, in practical terms, it is almost impossible to state the limits on what might count as regrouping, or marshalling forces, for a NPC in any situation that is less contrived or artificial than a pretty traditional dungeon. When you're talking about a Count - a ruler of a meaningful political unit - then in 8 hours that person can rouse guards who were sleeping or were on the walls rather than in the towers or whatever; if a vampire can summon packs of wolves or flocks (? not sure what the right noun of assemblage is) of bats; if a magic-user then perhaps can place magical traps or defences; etc.
I kinda meant that the specifics of Strahd were beside my point about the noble's capabilities needing to be established--and his actions needing to be consistent with those.
That said, I suspect that a suitably motivated and capable party could put severe crimps on a noble's abilities to defend himself. Disrupting his chain of command seems like the approach I'd take. Even more fantastical beings probably have their limitations, which might be exploitable.
Also, unrelated and much less important: The collective noun for bats seems to be either "colony" if they're roosting or "cloud" if they're flying. The latter wasn't familiar to me before I looked, and "flock" wouldn't have given me any pause.
By "naturalism" I'm echoing a term ("naturalistically") used in the OP. The OP contrasts "naturalistic" extrapolation of the fiction by the GM with "systematised" extrapolation such as found in Cortex+ Heroic/MHRP (the Doom Pool). I am drawing the same sort of contrast; as well as Doom Pool-style techniques (which can also be found in HeroQuest revised) I've mentioned games that systematically contrast the GM's role in framing scenes with the players' role in declaring actions for their PCs within scenes; and also 13th Age, which just uses a hard rule for recoveries of survive 4 standard encounters without an extended rest, or else suck up a campaign loss!
My experience is that many RPGers seem to object to these systematised approaches because they are "artificial". Hence my (and I believe @Manbearcat's) use of "naturalistic" as a label for the contrasting approach.
What you are arguing for - as I read you, at least - is that a naturalistic approach can still yield meaningful limits on the GM's moves within the fiction to "amp up" the encounter if the PCs take 8 hours of rest. I think this is true in the context of (say) Tomb of Horrors or White Plume Mountain. But as I've said above, I don't think it's true once you get into less contrived situations.
Thanks for answering the definitional question. I think you understand my position correctly. I think many of the situations seem "contrived" relative to what might be "realistic" (such as your example of a Count being able to radically increase his interior defenses) just because they're set up not to be overwhelming to run, especially for a new GM (new to the system or new to GMing, I think either could apply here) though fair-play-adjacent expectations are also a likely factor.
