Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5587548" data-attributes="member: 42582">I agree with your concluding paragraph. Which also refutes your opening paragraph! Because it shows that there are approaches to play that lie off your suggested spectrum.The sort of approach you describe - in which the GM follows the lead of the players in shaping and presenting a gameworld that engages their interests - is not widely discussed on ENworld, in my experience, but is discussed on other forums (eg the Forge). The key to making it work is for the GM to assert situational authority - the GM sets the scenes for the players, in response to their expressed and revealed interests - but for the players to exercise plot authority - ie the choices of the players determine how the situations actually resolve. The GM then takes those resolutions into account in setting up new situations (this is what you called a &quot;flexible sandbox&quot;).A game like this will flop if the GM can't set up situations that the players see as worthwhile to engage in. &quot;Worthwhileness&quot;, here, may be influenced by any number of factors, but would normally include considerations like &quot;fits sensibly - or at least plausibly - with what came before&quot; and &quot;doesn't make everything we've done up to now worthless or meaningless&quot;. The problem you identified in your initial GDS example, as I read it, is that the GM has failed on this second count.And in case I've completely misunderstood you, I'll apologise in advance for projecting my own ideas and preferences onto your description of your preferred approach to play!</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 5587548, member: 42582"] I agree with your concluding paragraph. Which also refutes your opening paragraph! Because it shows that there are approaches to play that lie off your suggested spectrum. The sort of approach you describe - in which the GM follows the lead of the players in shaping and presenting a gameworld that engages their interests - is not widely discussed on ENworld, in my experience, but is discussed on other forums (eg the Forge). The key to making it work is for the GM to assert [I]situational authority[/I] - the GM sets the scenes for the players, in response to their expressed and revealed interests - but for the players to exercise [I]plot authority[/I] - ie the choices of the players determine how the situations actually resolve. The GM then takes those resolutions into account in setting up new situations (this is what you called a "flexible sandbox"). A game like this will flop if the GM can't set up situations that the players see as worthwhile to engage in. "Worthwhileness", here, may be influenced by any number of factors, but would normally include considerations like "fits sensibly - or at least plausibly - with what came before" and "doesn't make everything we've done up to now worthless or meaningless". The problem you identified in your initial GDS example, as I read it, is that the GM has failed on this second count. And in case I've completely misunderstood you, I'll apologise in advance for projecting my own ideas and preferences onto your description of your preferred approach to play! [/QUOTE]

Verification