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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9623523" data-attributes="member: 42582">It does not "reduce all play to one set of actions" - rather, it identifies a key goal of play.And the actions that it refers to - namely, declaring actions that will prompt the GM to reveal salient elements of their prepared material (their "notes") - are not stiff. The whole point of RPGing is that the principal moves the players make are to say what certain characters, the ones they control and "identify" with, are doing. I don't know why you think that would be stiff. Of course it occurs with the unfolding of time, both at the table - that is common to all game play - and in the fiction.Likewise the reference to NPCs, and how the GM is portraying NPCs. As [USER=6785785]@hawkeyefan[/USER] and [USER=6925338]@soviet[/USER] have also mentioned, this is inherent to the medium of RPGing. But within that medium, what the players in a "solve the mystery" game of the traditional CoC-ish sort are trying to do is solve the mystery. This means they are trying to work out what it is that the GM has preauthored as having happened (eg so-and-so murdered so-and-so). And the way they work it out is by getting the GM to reveal elements of their preauthored material. And the way they do that is to prompt salient revelations by declaring appropriate actions - eg if they (the players) want to know what is (in the fiction) in the box, they might declare as an action "I open the box".This is not reductive. As Moldvay recognised, it's crucial to explaining the game play to someone who is not familiar with it.</blockquote>

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