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="prabe" data-source="post: 8286687" data-attributes="member: 7016699">I have no doubt that it can feel cinematic, but a scene--however much time it takes, and however much it might reveal about the character/s in it--is not a story. There might be a narrative to it, yes, and pacing, but it's not a story.If you're playing to experience a written story, that's an adventure path. If you're playing to experience a structured story the game generates, then the game rules are curating the fiction. In either event, the players are pretty much just along for the ride.I do not believe I have asserted that a structured story--complete with three-act structure, rising action, and suchlike--is what emerges from 5E play. A narrative--and an interesting narrative--certainly can.I'd say that the game is written to generate the experience of playing through a story, because it's written to be used with Adventure Path type published adventures; in this case generating the experience of playing through a story is not the same thing as generating a story (though different tables going through the same Adventure Path might generate varying narratives).Yes. Given that I think trying to emulate literature in TRPGs is a bad idea, it shouldn't be a surprise that I think foreshadowing is a pretty bad GMing technique. I mean, putting a gun on the mantelpiece is a thing, but as a GM that's really more like establishing the fiction so you can remain consistent with it.I can tell you that to me as a player it doesn't feel like foreshadowing, and it doesn't feel entirely uncurated.The history of RPG design and GM advice is laden with horrible ideas, at least as much as good ones. The commercial success of crap doesn't mean it's not crap. See the recent discourse about Shrek.Both of those games talk a lot about story that emerges from play, and the story that emerges in play, IME, isn't anything like structured fiction, even in PbtA or Fate.The tension that arises in the OP arises out of a clash between a GM's desire to write a story and the players' desire to change it. My feeling is that if the players aren't going to be allowed to change the story, there's no point to play.Heh. My approach to using a coin-toss is to define the options, toss the coin, and go with the result I find myself hoping for. If I don't find myself hoping for a specific result, I go with what the coin shows.That aside, I don't think it's unhelpful at all to point out that a game built to generate a specific shape of fiction is removing the ability of the people around the table to decide the shape of the fiction. If following the rules of the game generates a specific form or structure of story, the game is curating that--and maybe it's worth looking at how.Narratives absolutely emerge. Structured stories less so.</blockquote>

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