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Bridging the cognitive gap between how the game rules work and what they tell us about the setting
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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 9223586" data-attributes="member: 8461"><p>I'd say it's the job of the players (which includes the GM) to find a way to <em>make</em> them meet, connecting the one to the other, though I wouldn't use the term "story" as shorthand for the in-character state of things, simply because that term has a lot of baggage (the link in my previous post talks about this very well). Of course, this can require more or less effort depending on the degree of abstraction, and may not be possible if it passes what someone can countenance, etc.</p><p></p><p>You do a good job of explaining why I have a hard time with the "in-character process first, and then the rules back that up," simply because the rules very often don't back up a lot of things. Making a declarative statement that you push your enemy off the cliff face, and then roll a natural 1 on your check to force a target's involuntary movement, means that you <em>didn't</em> push him. The rules tell us what's happening, and we flesh out that skeleton by unpacking the abstractions, bridging the cognitive gap.</p><p></p><p>I mean, if we treat the story as an emergent property over the course of play, then the rules kind of <em>have</em> to inform us about where the story can or cannot go, at least in terms of what could possibly happen. If there's no check result for a skill that will let you run across water, and you don't have a special ability or magic item/spell that will let you run across water, then you're not going to run across the water to catch up to the ship an enemy is fleeing on, for instance.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 9223586, member: 8461"] I'd say it's the job of the players (which includes the GM) to find a way to [I]make[/I] them meet, connecting the one to the other, though I wouldn't use the term "story" as shorthand for the in-character state of things, simply because that term has a lot of baggage (the link in my previous post talks about this very well). Of course, this can require more or less effort depending on the degree of abstraction, and may not be possible if it passes what someone can countenance, etc. You do a good job of explaining why I have a hard time with the "in-character process first, and then the rules back that up," simply because the rules very often don't back up a lot of things. Making a declarative statement that you push your enemy off the cliff face, and then roll a natural 1 on your check to force a target's involuntary movement, means that you [I]didn't[/I] push him. The rules tell us what's happening, and we flesh out that skeleton by unpacking the abstractions, bridging the cognitive gap. I mean, if we treat the story as an emergent property over the course of play, then the rules kind of [I]have[/I] to inform us about where the story can or cannot go, at least in terms of what could possibly happen. If there's no check result for a skill that will let you run across water, and you don't have a special ability or magic item/spell that will let you run across water, then you're not going to run across the water to catch up to the ship an enemy is fleeing on, for instance. [/QUOTE]
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Bridging the cognitive gap between how the game rules work and what they tell us about the setting
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