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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7758894" data-attributes="member: 42582">Book 3 (Worlds and Adventures), p 19 of the 1977 edition (in what I think is a 1978 printing):Non-player characters are frequently encountered by travellers in the course of their adventures. Such persons are manipulated or controlled by the referee; their actions and deeds influence and direct the activities of the actual player characters in the game. . . . Adventurers, as they travel about on planets, have random encounters . . . Some random encounters are mandated by the referee. For example, a band may encounter a guard patrol at a building whil in the course of visiting (or burglarizing) it. The referee is always free to impose encounters to further the cause of the adventure being played; in many cases, he actually has a responsibility to do so.There's a bit of contradiction there (mandated and imposed "random" encounters), but I think that can be forgiven. And obviously the advice is not as rich as found eg in Luke Crane's Adventure Burner for Burning Wheel. But the "responsibilities" of the referee in running the game include framing encounters that will "further the cause of" the adventure - that's clearly something about being engaging, or exciting, or creating some sort of pressure with an eye to where it will drive the play of the game.To me, these seem to go together.If one player's PC's motivation is (say) defeat Lolth and redeem the Drow, then action declarations on their own aren't enough. If all the action is framed as piratical derring-do on the high seas, the "story" of how this PC set out to defeat Lolth and redeem the Drow is unlikely to be told. (Picking challenges itself depends upon the GM providing the framing - unless you're using some sort of "kicker" technique.)Which also feeds into the issue of what is the "best signal" - I don't look just for action declarations, but for backgrounds, Beliefs and the like in systems that have them, informal signals of thematic/narrative concern, etc. (Think even of Classic Travell Book 1, and the example merchant Jamieson's resentment at being let go by the service at the height of his career.)Part of the challenge of being a GM is then weaving these things together across multiple players, multiple PCs, multiple sessions, the details of the system, etc. I rely on a mixture of advice (eg about pacing), system and techniques (eg does the system require party play, like D&D; or allow actions of one PC to affect the situation for a geographically and even temporally separated PC; etc), and the social dynamics at the table.</blockquote>

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