NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6610335" data-attributes="member: 6696971">[MENTION=90370]Zak S[/MENTION], quite a good bit of analysis there (quantity and quality).  I skimmed as I'm short on time but gave the "Chokers" section a full read-through.  The term "Chokers", presumably, could just as easily be interchanged with "choke-points" or "bottlenecks."  The machinery at work serves to narrow opportunity, limit choice, constrain outcomes.  Consequently, "stuff that (typically) immediately follows" is more (but perhaps not totally) predictable GM-side.  I find that, most often, this is in the service of intensive prep or module hijinx (the classic anti-teleport and anti-divination stuff).  Heavy-handed, consecutive usage will lead to an inevitable, singular path (the topographical realization of continuous, depressed bottlenecks is a valley or a canyon).Something interesting (and important, I feel) to note is how certain players will react to certain techniques (used at all) and will react differently based on how overt (at the metagame or system level) those techniques are and how married they are to transparent play goals.For instance, I think  [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] is extremely averse to your "Chokers".  However, if play works out (either overt social contract, system, or the GM transparently relaying the meta-information) that everyone at the table manifestly understands how the agenda/techniques/resolution mechanics all come together to produce this experience (like in CoC...where a player's agency is not defined by their ability to affect outcomes/story trajectory...but rather in the rendering of their own descent into madness), and that is the point, then they are disinclined towards having that adverse reaction.  Because to play at all is to accept that premise.However, when different sorts of player agency are introduced and allegedly valued (such as the agency to skillfully overcome opposition/obstacles...or the agency to affect story trajectory or generate content), which may be at tension with other parts of a play agenda (such as tacit or explicit directives regarding PC habitation), is where things get sticky.  Different people will have different litmus tests for constraining that agency.  For instance, say I was running a scene-based game (say MHRP or 4e) for Hussar or  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION].  The games are predicated upon Action Scenes and hard Transition Scenes.  So, Hussar and pemerton have just successfully navigated some particular action scene.  Mechanically there is an output and there is a fiction that has evolved accordingly.  So I ask them what they're doing during this transitional period from one scene to the next.  If dice need to be rolled, they're rolled.  * Then, I take all that stuff, put it in the hopper, and frame them into the next thematic, conflict-charged scene as best as I can figure is an emergent outgrowth which respects all that comes prior (plays to their embedded thematic hooks, honors the prior fiction, their prior "wins", and their transition scene action declarations - and resolutions, if required).  Assuming I've done it well, Hussar and pemerton are happy and certainly don't feel there is any reduction in player agency.  In fact, if I've emotionally tapped into what they care about (through their PCs), they feel like I've maximized their agency and they couldn't be happier.  Conversely, if ** I had removed the hard transition such that play accounted (serially) for time and space (for no purpose but verisimilitude and agency in mundane/benign activities/resource accounting), and I just put a varying palette of conflict-neutral and conflict-potential content in front of them (that evolved of it's own volition)...and said "GO"...they would feel very differently.Now take players such as  [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] and [/mention]emdw45[/mention] and reverse the situation.  My guess is that * above feels like some brand of "Choker" to them while ** above represents at, or near, maximal agency.  Hard transitions and "play pushed towards conflict" (thus play where the conflict-charged scene is the exclusive locus of play) is anathema to them.  Maybe  [MENTION=6668292]JamesonCourage[/MENTION] feels similarly?</blockquote>

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