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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6437057" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't understand why you talk about a GM with a "mental bible". If the GM has a mental bible then yes, the players are exploring the gameworld via their PCs.But that is not the example I gave that you quoted in the post of yours I have just quoted.I gave an example in which the GM has no mental bible, and makes something up because s/he knows it is what the players are hoping for. If the players know that this is what the GM did - ie if they know that, rather than deploy a mental bible or some randomisation device for extrapolating from said bible, the GM is following their lead - then the players know that they are no longer exploring a world. They know that, through the desires that they express during play, they are helping to shape it.The fact that the shaping is mediated via the GM does not dilute the force, nor the significance, of their knowledge.If you think there is a fundamental divide between RPGs and storygames, then in my view you should put the style of play I just described on the storygame side. Because the fact that the players' desires are mediated via the GM, rather than via (say) a fate point mechanic, is a technical detail. In either case the players know that they are helping to author a world, not simply exploring a GM-authored world.This is also the reason why I regard the RPG/storygame distinction as spurious. Because I have been running games that roughly fit my above description since 1986-87, using mostly D&D and Rolemaster as my systems. And I learned to run games like this playing the original Oriental Adventures, without needing to adopt any house rules other than the anti-aligment rules of "For King and Country" published in Dragon #101 (September 1986). So either I successfully invented player-driven storygaming all by myself, even though I thought I was RPGing (and was using rules all of which described themselves as RPG rules) or (as I think more likely) I was just RPGing in a way diffrent from the sort of exploration-oriented play that you put under that label.</blockquote>

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