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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8084240" data-attributes="member: 42582">There are some fundamental differences between what you describe here and RPGing played using the general sort of approach I and some other posters - [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER], [USER=16814]@Ovinomancer[/USER] - have described:(1) RPGing involves multiple authors (ie players and the GM).(2) RPGing uses mechanics to allocate authority among those authors, and to set parameters for that negotiation. <a href="http://lumpley.com/hardcore.html" target="_blank">Here's Vincent Baker on the point</a>:Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players and GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not.  . . . Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.(3) The authorship takes place in the moment of play. But it is constrained by the mechanics - eg if a player fails a check, then what is authored must reflect the PC's failure in what they tried to attempt - and also by other system elements - eg in Burning Wheel, the GM's narration is to be established having regard to PC build elements like Beliefs and Relationships. These constraints are what produces story without any participant having to write a story in advance.<a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=1361" target="_blank">Here's Paul Czege on GM narration of NPCs</a>:[W]hen I'm framing scenes, and I'm in the zone, I'm turning a freakin' firehose of adversity and situation on the character. It is not an objective outgrowth of prior events. It's intentional as all get out. . . . I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this. And like Scott's "Point A to Point B" model says, the outcome of the scene is not preconceived.In the quote, and I think in your other posts, you are focusing on pre-authored plot as key to establishing a story. But that is not the only way. As systems like BW, Apocalypse World etc illustrate - and as Czege illustrates - story can be generated by pre-establishing certain elements, like features of character and/or theme or genre, and then using a mechanical system to establish pacing and dramatic trajectory.What I'm still unsure about is this: are you familiar with (say) Apocalypse World, or Blades in the Dark, or Burning Wheel, but don't agree with how others are characterising the play of these systems? Or are you not familiar with these systems?</blockquote>

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