NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6812567" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Fair warning.  I'm not sure how long this is going to be, but I'm feeling a TLDR coming on.  First, I'm going to throw out some key terminology to differentiate what I'm talking about (and have been talking about).[HR][/HR]Situation:  This is a singular conflict/scene whereby the PC, or PCs, must deal with adversarial elements/antagonists that interpose themselves between PC(s) and goal.  In Story Now systems, the game engine will have PC flags that serve as identity/ethos/relationship markers.  The GM mandate is to invoke/develop adversarial elements/antagonists that directly oppose this "flagged thematic material" such that they serve to test the PC's willingness/capability to actualize it or not (*).  That is the entire point of play.In every Situation, players will play their PC's interests to the hilt while the GM plays the opposition.  The player inhabiting their PC fighting for their interests (emotional, ideological, utility, et al) against opposition is necessary for players who immerse in a certain way.  The player will declare actions, they will be resolved per the system's machinery, and eventually this will settle all disputed matters in the immediate Situation.  This will serve to propel the fiction such that it snowballs from Situation to Situation.  In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramatic_structure" target="_blank">Freytag's Dramatic Structure</a>, this would be Exposition and the beginning stages of the Rising Action ("scene-framing").  The context of the Rising Action will be (a) the point of play (* above) and (b) the relevance of prior established fiction.  Up for grabs for resolution in a Situation would be the Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Denouement.Metaplot:  This is when there is pre-authored material that extrapolates into the fiction's future beyond mere Situation (possibly all the way up to the end stages of Falling Action where the finality of the metaplot is up for grabs).  This material is most often "PC flag neutral".  The point of the material being "PC flag neutral" is to exhibit the evolution of independent offscreen happenings within the fiction.  The reason for this is because folks who immerse in a certain way feel that it is necessary for "a living, breathing, world" and therefore PC habitation.  Railroad:  The imposition of Metaplot whereby players have little to no say in outcomes (most or all of Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Denouement) during a string of Situations which represent the consequential aspects of play.  There is pre-authored material to play through in order to get to a moment in the pre-authored fiction whereby the players have access to dictate outcomes (this is typically the big showdown of the Falling Action, right before Denouement occurs).GM Force:  Subversion of player agency (as expected by social contract, system, or both) by the GM.  It is an instance of imposition whereby the GM dictates the outcome of any of the Rising Action, Climax, or Falling Action which is supposed to be up for grabs for the players.  Even if only to move the Rising Action to the Climax, this still means that the integrity of player agency has been compromised because the trajectory of play forward has been propelled by the GM's whim/interests.Finally, if the Denouement is propelled toward pre-authored material AND its evolution toward that path is incoherent (with respect to violating PC build flags - such as Burning Wheel Instincts, the present Situation and/or the prior established fiction), this would be another instance of GM Force.Illusionism:  This is GM Force covertly deployed (typically manifesting as the manipulation of mechanical resolution toward a GM sought end).  [HR][/HR]I'll post later on this.  I have somewhere to be.</blockquote>

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