NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8285183" data-attributes="member: 42582">[USER=99817]@chaochou[/USER] didn't say that, nor imply it.In my Classic Traveller game, the behaviours of NPCs are based on the intersection of their reason for being somewhere (eg guards guard; customs officials check papers; interrogators interrogate; etc) and the result of a reaction roll. I am normally the person who decides whether a NPC is a guard, or customs official, or interrogator, or whatever. (In that respect my game is probably less collaborative than the sort of approach chaochou describes).But I don't make those decisions based on what would make for a good story. I make those decisions based on what does the fiction demand (eg starports have customs officials but not interrogators; secret outposts of offworld infiltrators have interrogators but not customs officials). I apply the outcomes of reaction rolls (eg What does it mean for an interrogator to have a positive reaction to the person she is interrogating? In our game it meant that she sided with him when he escaped, was able to grab some powered armour that was in the base, and proceeded to trash the place). So I am not redundant. But - contra [USER=7025508]@Crimson Longinus[/USER] and consistently with what [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER] and [USER=99817]@chaochou[/USER] have posted, I'm not letting story outcomes drive my decision making process.I've already posted in this thread about the relevance to the tension discussed in the OP of various sorts of approaches to scene framing and extrapolating the fiction between scenes. Part of the skill of framing scenes well, in games that emphasise GM authority over scene framing together with Adherence to resolution process and outcomes when players declare actions for their PCs during scenes, is thinking up situations that will be interesting independently of any particular story outcome. [USER=99817]@chaochou[/USER] points to one useful thing that can help with doing that: drawing upon the players' ideas of cool stories, evinced by the goals and relationships they come up with for their PCs.Of course I can't, and don't, claim to speak for chaochou. But I think there is enough similarity between us in how we approach these things that my response to the pretty absurd suggestion that the game would happen just the same without you being there would also fit him to a fair degree.**********************************************Are you talking about elements of the fiction, or outcomes.Here are two posts from [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER]:There is no contradiction between these posts. Situations are engaging and raise questions in virtue of the elements that figure in them. This is quite different from outcomes or answers to the questions raised.Drawing this distinction is especially important in RPGing because of the role of the players in contributing to the shared fiction by declaring actions for their PCs!</blockquote>

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