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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 7820724" data-attributes="member: 16586">Back to the original topic I think the central component necessary for engaging in the fiction as a fiction is who gets to really decide what our characters goals are allowed to be. This includes less overt social pressure both from the GM and other players.I see two central cultural tensions here:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The expectations wrapped up into this idea of the story or the adventure. It does not really matter what we call it. There is this idea that there is a central purpose to play that must be divined. There is something that must be done and it is our job to do it. This is the expectation that what we must do has already been defined (usually by the GM but sometimes by the shared animus of the group) and it is the job to do it. I think this is why many GMs describe part of their responsibility as being about herding cats.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The other is less severe, but still a detriment. It is the expectation that all character decisions are decided largely by committee. There is a powwow and the 5 headed snake acts in relative unison. It is not what does your character do. It's what does the group do.</li> </ol>These social pressures exist in varying degrees in different games and groups. Largely the more they exist the less we are making decisions as our characters would make them. Engaging with the fiction largely becomes about the means rather than the aims of the characters. This is not like necessarily like a bad thing. It's just like a thing.Cultural expectations about outcomes still play a fairly large role, but in the presence of a lack of individual player agency over the goals their character has it becomes largely more of a concern over game versus story rather than a question about engaging with the fiction as a fiction. I find that often attempts to control the outcomes of things is often getting into the question of aims without like talking things out.I mean engaging in the fiction as a fiction sounds like a good thing we all want to claim, but the most unadulterated form of it is actually something many gamers do not actually like want. That's like not a bad thing. It's not even what I want like all the time.</blockquote>

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