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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 8286432" data-attributes="member: 16586">[USER=7025508]@Crimson Longinus[/USER] I feel like you are trying to smuggle in your play preferences to other sorts of play that fundamentally do not share them. It's true that we cannot fully disconnect from our narrative preferences and that all RPGs will produce narrative or story as an output. It does not follow from there that the purpose of all RPG play is the production of story. When I say story is incidental to play (except to the extent it generates fallout that impacts future play) I mean exactly that. Story happens, but I'm not there for it.When we are playing something character focused I don't want to feel like we are in a writer's room or the GM is a film director. I want their minds to be focused on what we're doing right now. For this type of play to feel rewarding I need you here with me. I need your focus to be on your character and playing them with integrity. Your character deserves your advocacy and investment. Good stories often occur when we do this, but it's beside the point. I'm looking for as authentic embodiment of character here as possible. That's really hard. You should not have much time to think of anything else.Likewise for more challenge oriented play I want your head in the game. The GM should be busy providing honest adversity, making fair calls, and extrapolating the effects of player decision making. They should also be enjoying when players do those Play of the Game type things. Players also need their heads in the game. They have challenges to overcome. If they can afford to spend cognitive effort on what's best for the story the challenge level should either be amped up or they're not contributing to the team like they should.Obviously there are varying configurations of play priorities and I chose fairly extreme configurations here (that I happen to really enjoy). The overall point is that story need not be a high priority or even one at all. It's often the case that focusing on story can detract from the play experience if the group is prioritizing other things.</blockquote>

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