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<blockquote data-quote="Fenris-77" data-source="post: 7920779" data-attributes="member: 6993955">I think the BitD example falls of the rails a little when you take a closer look at what 'no agenda' means set next to what actually happens at the table. If the GM is making choices about what limited success looks like, or deciding what the cost of failure looks like, he is making those decision based on, to use the term above, an 'agenda'. The GM can't GM without doing this because the nature of that role at the table means constant decision making, and decisions are made on the basis of some criteria set or heuristic. Whatever that heuristic is, it's the GMs, not the players'. This is made even clearer when you look at the notion of fictional framing. It might indeed be the players who set the initial frame, but it's the GM who fills the frame so that the players can play. That filling of the initial frame is also a series of decisions, which are also made by the GM using some sort of heuristic. A third example is the one of consequences on a larger scale. To continue with the BitD example, iot is the GM, not the players, who largely decides what the broader implication of the player's actions will be - the reaction of other factions etc, and so again, we have decisions based on heuristic of some kind. In all three cases that heuristic will necessarily include value judgments about good and bad, better or worse, interesting and not interesting, and in all those cases based on the GMs idea about the fiction present at the table.BitD might involve more back and forth when it comes to control over the fiction, but it's still a back and forth</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Fenris-77, post: 7920779, member: 6993955"] I think the BitD example falls of the rails a little when you take a closer look at what 'no agenda' means set next to what actually happens at the table. If the GM is making choices about what limited success looks like, or deciding what the cost of failure looks like, he is making those decision based on, to use the term above, an 'agenda'. The GM can't GM without doing this because the nature of that role at the table means constant decision making, and decisions are made on the basis of some criteria set or heuristic. Whatever that heuristic is, it's the GMs, not the players'. This is made even clearer when you look at the notion of fictional framing. It might indeed be the players who set the initial frame, but it's the GM who fills the frame so that the players can play. That filling of the initial frame is also a series of decisions, which are also made by the GM using some sort of heuristic. A third example is the one of consequences on a larger scale. To continue with the BitD example, iot is the GM, not the players, who largely decides what the broader implication of the player's actions will be - the reaction of other factions etc, and so again, we have decisions based on heuristic of some kind. In all three cases that heuristic will necessarily include value judgments about good and bad, better or worse, interesting and not interesting, and in all those cases based on the GMs idea about the fiction present at the table. BitD might involve more back and forth when it comes to control over the fiction, but it's still a back and forth [/QUOTE]

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