The thing you are fighting against
There is no thing that I am fighting against. You think I'm fighting against something, but I don't know what that thing is.
What I am talking about, and have been talking about ever since
I raised the example of the boxes in the alley, is the variety of principles that guide content-authorship. In particular, I am interested in the role that player desires might play in influencing content-authorship. I have been pointing to passages in Gygax's rulebooks where he recognises, in various ways, that player desires - for "fun", for "entertainment", for "excitement" - might be drawn upon by a GM to author content, even if this means overriding the default content-generation technique of random rolls, and even if this means adding a dungeon into the campaign world where the GM had no original plans to place one.
For some reason you seem to think that pointing to these passages in Gygax is an attack upon him, or upon you. I don't know why. I think it is a sign of Gygax's sense as a designer that he recognises in these relatively early rulebooks that there are systemic tensions in RPG design between (i) the pre-eminent authorship role of the GM, and (ii) the aim of the game being for the players to have fun playing their PCs. His solutions to these tensions aren't exactly the same as Luke Crane's. But they don't come from some other universe, either.
One, please don't conflate the discussions of player authorial control and adventure tailoring.
Argument and analysis are not "conflation". "Player authorial control" and "adventure tailoring" are two instances of the same phenomenon, namely, authoring the fictional content of the gameworld having an eye to the desires and interests of the players of the game. That is why both are being discussed in this thread: because the OP gave an example of player disengagement with a scenario, asking "what die do I roll to solve this problem", and hence other posters started talking about ways in which a GM can author ingame material that is more likely to engage the players.
The problem here Mark CMG is your inability to accept a fairly well established example - namely fairly well supported examples of player authorship in early versions of D&D - such as adding in a complete, and completely tailored adventure to a campaign through the invocation of a player. That it's dressed up as a character option doesn't change the fact that it is the player, pure and simple, who is adding the horse and the horse quest to the game when the player chooses to do so.
For me, this is what is key. It is why I have reiterated that one of the major insights of the Forge is to look at play from a real-world rather than in-game perspective.
From the point of view of the GM, it makes no difference to his/her job that the calling for the warhorse is initiated by the player character as well as by the player (contrast with my imaginary thief example upthread, where the ability of the player to trigger a guild mission does not correlate to a PC action). The fact is that, because of a decision taken by a player, a whole lot of extra content now belongs in the game - including in the past history of the gameworld (where did this evil fighter come from? how did he gain custody of the warhorse? when and where was the warhorse foaled? etc).
The rules are guidelines and, for instance, if the GM doesn't have horses in his setting he is under no obligation to have one in his setting.
This is a red herring. In my hypothetical example of the thief player being able to trigger a guild mission, a GM might declare "there are no thieves' guilds in my world, so you don't have that ability". The same GM might say that a thief PC can't speak Thieves' Cant either.
[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s point is that,
if the ability is used as presented in the rulebooks - which is, presumably, the default assumption of the game - then the player, by declaring a certain action for his/her PC ("I call for my warhorse"), obliges the GM to introduce a whole lot of rather specific content into the gameworld.
Just so I am clear what you are saying, you are saying that the work a GM does on an adventure (and a setting?) because it is created for players is an example of player authorial control? Can I ask anyone else (maybe pemberton? GM for Powergamers? Anyone at all?) if they agree with this interpretation?
Absolutely. I've been articulating just this point for dozens of post, including this one. The fact that you now have to ask whether I agree with [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] only increases my confusion over what you think you have been replying to in my posts.
The player tells the GM that his character is calling for a warhorse . . . thus the player is roleplaying. The GM explains what happens next, how that functions in his setting. It is simple.
The GM now has to introduce a whole lot of material into the gameworld. Material that, otherwise, wouldn't have been there - like a 5+5 HD magically intelligent warhorse, its immediate environent, perhaps the evil fighter who is guarding it, etc, all within a few days journey of the paladin PC. That may or may not be simple (for some GMs it will be; I've known GMs for whom it would be a challenge, though). It may or may not fall under you definition of "roleplaying". That doesn't change the fact that it is an instance of a player getting to dictate, to a significant degree of specification, the content of the gameworld extending well beyond the actions of his/her PC.
I do not believe 'the paladin calling for his my little pony' is considered player authorial control anymore than a character attaining name level and deciding to construct a stronghold, hideout, tower, castle and attracting followers or for that instance making ANY character decision in the game which "forces" the DM to change the direction of the adventure, incorporate NPCs/items..etc
Then you might as well define all D&D, perhaps even all RPGs, as a co-authored just because players (through their characters) can change the direction of the adventures set by the DM which affects the ongoing story.
Buidling strongholds is another interesting example, although less dramatic than the warhorse one. For instance, a fighter, by bulding a stronghold, makes it true that the gameworld contains a level 5 mercenary captain with a +2 battleaxe who turns up ready for service.
And yes, if your RPG contains this sort of stuff then
you might as well define it as co-authored. Not all RPGs do contain this kind of stuff, though. Rolemaster doesn't. Runequest doesn't. 3E doesn't as its default - Leadership is expressly optional, and paladin mounts are spontaneously magically created by summoning, unlike the AD&D mount. All three of those games - RM, RQ and 3E - are departures from classic D&D, deliberately shedding various elements with the aim of establishing a stricter unity between player choices and perspectives and character choices and perspectives.
The fact that it is possible to have an RPG with less player infuence over the content of the gameworld outside of the actual actions of their PCs than is found in AD&D and B/X itself tells us someting about those early versions of D&D: the original designers of D&D weren't afraid to let the players have a modest hand in world-building.
A game like Burning Wheel or Fate is not some dramatic departure from early norms of RPGing. They develop ideas and trends implicity in the game-style. Just as RM, RQ etc do, although in their case they go in the opposite direction. From my point of view, someone saying that Burning Wheel isn't an RPG because the players get to influence which NPCs exist (by making Circles checks) is no more snesible than someone saying that RuneQuest or Rolemaster isn't an RPG because playes, no matter how long and well they play the game, never get an automatic, rules-driven entitlement to acquire followers, or earn a warhorse by way of a quest.
