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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8346202" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>My response here is much closer to [USER=85555]@Bedrockgames[/USER]'s. Having to "hunt" for the action is something I find a bit frustrating.</p><p></p><p>I've got no problem with giving it an an-fiction overlay so as to maintain continuity, but I don't think that requires coyness on the GM's part.</p><p></p><p>The in-fiction overlay might vary depending on other features of system and the particular game being played. Eg in an "adventure of the week"-style game, maybe the GM says <em>OK, so on the instructions of so-and-so you've travelled to Port Sul</em>. In a more player-driven game, presumably the whole Port Sul adventure is already relevant to some thing the players are working towards, and so the GM says <em>OK, so your researches into how to achieve XYZ show that the answer is at Port Sul, with an apothecary known as Hazen. After a few days travel, you arrive there. Do you try and track down Hazen straight away?</em></p><p></p><p>Eg in my Classic Traveller game, the PCs were investigating an alien ship that had travelled in time and was linked somehow to psionics. They had made the necessary Computer checks to interpret its data and play back the ship's records. And the players therefore asked where the ship had come from. So I had to tell them something! Having anticipated this, and having made up the world in question and placed it on the star map, I was able to give an answer. And so the next bit of action was preparing to travel, and then travelling to that world - Zinion.</p><p></p><p>Classic Traveller isn't really a "say 'yes' or roll the dice" game - it's a bit more of a PbtA "if you do it, you do it" approach. So we didn't just say <em>After a week in jump space, you arrive at Zinion</em>. We did the refuelling, and the drive failure checks, and all the procedural rigmarole that Traveller requires. (Full actual play account <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/played-some-classic-traveller-today.674889/" target="_blank">here</a>.)</p><p></p><p>Maybe that's what you would characterise as a nudge? To me, it's just clear framing: we all want the next thing to be looking for alien ruins on Zinion; the logic of the map puts Zinion <em>over there</em>; the rules of the game require you to make these checks in order for us to be allowed to agree that your PCs have got from <em>here </em>to <em>over there</em>; so we resolve those checks and (given that at our table they were successful) we narrate the arrival at Zinion and you start declaring actions that will help you find the alien ruins.</p><p></p><p>I see this as very similar the player-driven version of the drip to Port Sul I described above.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8346202, member: 42582"] My response here is much closer to [USER=85555]@Bedrockgames[/USER]'s. Having to "hunt" for the action is something I find a bit frustrating. I've got no problem with giving it an an-fiction overlay so as to maintain continuity, but I don't think that requires coyness on the GM's part. The in-fiction overlay might vary depending on other features of system and the particular game being played. Eg in an "adventure of the week"-style game, maybe the GM says [I]OK, so on the instructions of so-and-so you've travelled to Port Sul[/I]. In a more player-driven game, presumably the whole Port Sul adventure is already relevant to some thing the players are working towards, and so the GM says [I]OK, so your researches into how to achieve XYZ show that the answer is at Port Sul, with an apothecary known as Hazen. After a few days travel, you arrive there. Do you try and track down Hazen straight away?[/I] Eg in my Classic Traveller game, the PCs were investigating an alien ship that had travelled in time and was linked somehow to psionics. They had made the necessary Computer checks to interpret its data and play back the ship's records. And the players therefore asked where the ship had come from. So I had to tell them something! Having anticipated this, and having made up the world in question and placed it on the star map, I was able to give an answer. And so the next bit of action was preparing to travel, and then travelling to that world - Zinion. Classic Traveller isn't really a "say 'yes' or roll the dice" game - it's a bit more of a PbtA "if you do it, you do it" approach. So we didn't just say [I]After a week in jump space, you arrive at Zinion[/I]. We did the refuelling, and the drive failure checks, and all the procedural rigmarole that Traveller requires. (Full actual play account [url=https://www.enworld.org/threads/played-some-classic-traveller-today.674889/]here[/url].) Maybe that's what you would characterise as a nudge? To me, it's just clear framing: we all want the next thing to be looking for alien ruins on Zinion; the logic of the map puts Zinion [I]over there[/I]; the rules of the game require you to make these checks in order for us to be allowed to agree that your PCs have got from [I]here [/I]to [I]over there[/I]; so we resolve those checks and (given that at our table they were successful) we narrate the arrival at Zinion and you start declaring actions that will help you find the alien ruins. I see this as very similar the player-driven version of the drip to Port Sul I described above. [/QUOTE]
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