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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 8286998" data-attributes="member: 16586">Here's how I see it : Not all RPG play is collaborative storytelling. For instance when I play 5e the group I play with is absolutely engaging in collaborative storytelling. We're all mindful of the direction the story is going in, what each other's character concepts are, spotlight balancing, and the trajectory of their individual stories. We lean into plot hooks. The whole jazz. Critical Role style stuff.The group I play Vampire and Infinity with is entirely different. There's none of that stuff going on. The players pretty much just play out the agendas of their individual characters. There's no concern for what the story is going to look like. The GM just provides honest antagonism. The focus is entirely on feeling what our characters feel and advocating for them. The entire focus is on the experience of being our characters in those tense moments. It's not collaborative storytelling even if I occasionally can sit back and enjoy the narrative.It's actually not all that different from my experience with the gym. Right now I'm training for aesthetics. When I go to the gym I'm not concerned with expressing strength through lifting heavier weights in the same way a power lifter would. If strength was my concern I would have a training program focused on strength. Instead my focus is on building contractile tissue so my shoulders, chest, and upper back look bigger and my waist looks smaller. In order to do so I am concentrating on time under tension, mind muscle connection, and exhausting the muscle. If I approached my training with  the same mindset I used to bring to power lifting it would be far less effective.Still over the course of doing this body building program I'm still getting stronger and pushing heavier weights. I'm not concerned with getting stronger. It's just a side effect of putting on muscle. It's a fringe benefit rather than the point of the endeavor. In fact if I want to pursue my current goals optimally I have to exercise restraint and discipline when the urge to express my strength pops up.The opposite is also true by the way. A peaking program would give minor hypertrophic benefits, but allow me to express strength much more easily. I would also have to be very disciplined about rest and volume. Making sure I was as fresh as possible for max effort work.</blockquote>

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