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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8082914" data-attributes="member: 42582">There are a lot of RPGs out there, so nearly any generalisation will probably founder on some counter-example.Nevertheless, let's push on!A typical RPG session consists - in the fiction - of a series of events that occur to one or more characters, and - at the table - of a conversation between participants.Some of that conversation is "free" or "unstructured" - perhaps players are making a plan, or idly having their PCs interact, or engaging a mechanic that allows for "automatic" changes to the PC sheet like swapping money for gear, or rememorising spells, or reducing penalties from injuries, etc. The GM might participate in these conversations by offering reminders, confirming certain understandings of how a particular piece of equipment functions, clarifying the amount of in-fiction time that passes, etc. The GM's role here is a mix of facilitator, chairperson and coordinator of what counts as "true-in-the-fiction".There are various ways that the GM can exercise control over this phase of play. One way is by drawing upon established, pre-authored elements of the fiction - "the setting", including the trajectory of in-fiction events within the setting (the GM narrating "plot hooks" is one example). This particular way of exercising control is likely to loom relatively large in Adventure Path RPGing.The other sort of conversation that takes place during RPGing - and in my view it's the more exciting part -  is the bit where the GM describes some challenge or obstacle or opportunity which prompts the players to declare actions for their PCs. This typically involves the GM presenting some event or situation in the fiction which is (from the point of view of the PCs) immediate and hence unavoidable. (Maybe the PCs can extricate themselves from the situation, but there's no escaping that, in the fiction, there is some situation from which extrication may be required.)Resolving these situations will generate new fiction.In Adventure Path play, many of these challenges and obstacles and opportunities are pre-scripted. That means that the new fiction that results from resolving them has to be kept within constrained boundaries. Otherwise the Adventure Path will not work, as the fiction that is created by resolution will depart from and/or contradict the pre-scripting. An illustration, which I think I've read in more than one DMG: if the PCs kill the evil leader, a lieutenant takes over and the trajectory of the fiction continues largely undisturbed. (Until the final pre-scripted resolution, of course, where defeating the leader brings the bad guys' evil scheme to an end.)To reliably get "story" out of RPGing without pre-scripting, certain techniques need to be used in generating the new fiction that flows from resolution. The most basic ones that I'm familiar with are on successes, the PCs (and hence players) get what they want and on failures, bad things happen that reinforce the pressure that the PCs were already under. These are also constraints on the new fiction, but pretty different from the sort an AP relies on.Two recurrent weaknesses in the design of some RPGs (at least in my experience) are (i) they permit situations to arise which don't have a system for determining success or failure, and (ii) they don't provide very much support for establishing bad things that reinforce the pressure that the PCs were already under other than physical harm to the PCs. For an RPG that lacks these things, Adventure Paths do offer an alternative way for getting story in your RPGing, if you don't mind the constraints on new fiction that they impose.</blockquote>

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