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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Xetheral" data-source="post: 7804616" data-attributes="member: 6802765">I disagree that exploratory play requires the DM to be a neutral referee whose only concern is fairness and accurately depicting the fictional world. Sure, players who prefer an exploratory playstyle often prefer the DM-as-referee DMing style, but I can't agree that the connection is inherent.Instead of "accurately depicting the fictional world"I would argue that exploratory play only requires the DM to consistently depict the fictional world. Consistency is sufficient to provide the increased verisimilitude that exploratory play emphasizes, and also permits players to make meaningful inferences from their existing explorations of the game world regarding the state of the unobserved parts of the game world. Crucially, exploratory play does not require that the accuracy of those inferences be known to the DM in advance based on reference to pre-written material. Instead, it's entirely possible for the DM to defer the decision on whether or not the players' inference is correct until the players take an action whose outcome depends on it. At that point there are usually still a broad range of outcomes that would be perfectly consistent with the game world presented so far. The DM can choose between those consistent options based on pacing, drama, spotlight time, or any other factor they want. As long as consistency is maintained, I think a game can still strongly emphasize the exploratory style even with a DM who, as you put it, has another agenda other than accuracy.Ultimately, I would claim that accurately refereeing player actions with regard to a pre-determined state of the game world is only one (very common) DMing style that achieves the consistency emphasized in exploratory play. But many other DMing styles can also achieve the requisite consistency to support the exploratory playstyle. I thus cannot agree with your claim that leaning towards an exploratory playstyle requires leaning away from a drama-driven DMing stlye.</blockquote>

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