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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6936736" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I don't think "byproduct" is pejorative. It's certainly not intended as such, as I went to some effort to explain.</p><p></p><p>When I say that I like games that are designed to produce dramatically satisfying story as a byproduct of play (what the Forge calls "narrativism" or "story now") I'm not meaning to insult myself or belittle the value of dramatically satisfying story. Quite the opposite - I think that RPG play that sets out directly to narrate dramatically satisfying story is in fact self-defeating, because that approach runs straight into problems with managing the potentially competing agencies of the multiple participants.</p><p></p><p>The game is about those PCs, yes. That doesn't make the obstacles illusory - unless the GM is disregarding mechanical resolution altogether (not unheard of, but in my own view not all that conducive to satisfying RPGing on either side of the table), the players will actually have to declare some actions for their PCs. And the resolution of those actions, by those players at that table, will then determine some future ingame states of affairs (eg is my PC on top of, or at the bottom of, the cliff?; did my PC kill the orc, or vice versa? etc).</p><p></p><p>If those checks all fail, the game can tend to grind to a halt, because D&D tends not to have particularly robust approaches to managing PC failure. Especially failure in combat. (5e has preserved some of 4e's developments in this respect, but it's not a leader in RPG tech in this particular respect.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6936736, member: 42582"] I don't think "byproduct" is pejorative. It's certainly not intended as such, as I went to some effort to explain. When I say that I like games that are designed to produce dramatically satisfying story as a byproduct of play (what the Forge calls "narrativism" or "story now") I'm not meaning to insult myself or belittle the value of dramatically satisfying story. Quite the opposite - I think that RPG play that sets out directly to narrate dramatically satisfying story is in fact self-defeating, because that approach runs straight into problems with managing the potentially competing agencies of the multiple participants. The game is about those PCs, yes. That doesn't make the obstacles illusory - unless the GM is disregarding mechanical resolution altogether (not unheard of, but in my own view not all that conducive to satisfying RPGing on either side of the table), the players will actually have to declare some actions for their PCs. And the resolution of those actions, by those players at that table, will then determine some future ingame states of affairs (eg is my PC on top of, or at the bottom of, the cliff?; did my PC kill the orc, or vice versa? etc). If those checks all fail, the game can tend to grind to a halt, because D&D tends not to have particularly robust approaches to managing PC failure. Especially failure in combat. (5e has preserved some of 4e's developments in this respect, but it's not a leader in RPG tech in this particular respect.) [/QUOTE]
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