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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9465122" data-attributes="member: 42582">My reasoning is that the GM is not more able to establish a shared fiction on their own, than is a player. Neither has the power to unilaterally establish the content of a shared fiction. That's a direct consequence of it being shared.I don't know of any such game, and so am not talking about it.To explain my words:*allocation of "ownership" of different bits of the fiction to different participants - a lot of RPGs use this, by giving the players ownership over their PCs, and what their PCs hope and think, and perhaps also who their PCs have close relationships with; while giving the GM ownership over NPCs, and bits of the setting that are unconnected to or only loosely connected to the PCs. If everyone respects that ownership structure, then shared fiction can be created by integrating the contributions of multiple participants. *using structured processes to elicit different participants' vision for how the fiction might unfold, and then using dice to determine whose vision prevails - D&D saving throws are a bit like this, where the GM declares "You fall into a pit trap!" or "As you reach into the treasure chest, you're stung by a scorpion" and then the player rolls their save and, if they win, get to replace their preferred vision of the fiction - "With my sharp reflexes, I step back from the edge at the last moment" or "With my sharp reflexes, I pull my hand away just before the scorpion strikes!" *using dice to distribute obligations on one or more participants to come up with ideas for how the fiction might unfold that depart from their initial vision - Apocalypse World uses this a lot. Here's an illustration, which begins in media res, with the PC escaping from hostile enemies on a motorbike: the GM narrates a threat (maybe "As you're racing along on your bike, you crest a ridge only to see that there is a gorge right in front of you - you're going to tumble right into it!"), and then the player declares an action (let's say, "I gun my engine, race as fast as I can down the sloe between ridge and gorge, and jump it!), the GM calls for a move (in this case, Act Under Fire, given that the PC is trying to do something under serious pressure), and the player rolls the dice. If the player succeeds on their throw with a 10+, then they get what they wanted - their PC jumps the gorge on their bike. If the player fails on a 6-, the GM gets to bring the thread home: the PC and bike go tumbling into the gorge. If the player rolls a 7-9, though, the GM has to "offer [the player/their PC] a worse outcome, a hard bargain, or an ugly choice" (p 190). That would be an example of the dice imposing an obligation on the GM to come up with ideas for how the fiction might unfold that depart from their initial vision (which was of the PC and bike tumbling into the gorge) and from the player's initial vision (which was of the PC dramatically jumping their bike over the gorge). Maybe the GM decides on a worse outcome: "Your gun the engine, and take off over the gorge. Miraculously, you make it to the other side, but while you survive the landing your bike doesn't. The front forks are mangled, and that thing is not going anywhere. What do you do?"As per my post that your replied to, these are all techniques that can be used to incorporate multiple inputs into a consensus shared fiction. They show how players' inputs, as well as GM's inputs, can be part of that. The way those inputs are handled may be similar, or different, depending on the particular system.But whatever the details, the point is that it is simply wrong to suggest that the only two ways to establish fiction in a RPG are via GM dictation or group voting.You seem to be talking about GM prep. I'm talking about the fiction that the group collectively creates, as part of playing the game.</blockquote>

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