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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9640730" data-attributes="member: 42582">I have dozens and dozens of actual play posts. I've linked to some of them in this thread. You can read them if you like.I've watched some of [USER=85555]@Bedrockgames[/USER] and [USER=13383]@robertsconley[/USER]'s actual play videos. In this thread, I've seen the latter post notes for a "world in motion" campaign which seem to me, and which he has agreed, are basically the same (technique-wise) as the ones that I posted from my campaign of 30 to 35 years ago.I don't recall ever having any trouble making sense of your accounts of how you play RPGs.I don't think I post anything mysterious. It's not hard to understand, for instance, how to play Burning Wheel. I have had posters seem incredulous in the face of the instruction to a GM that everything they do should be done keeping in mind player-established priorities for the players' PCs. But incredulity of that sort is not my problem.I do read posts in which various posters - including, it seems to me, you from time to time - want to assert simultaneously that a GM can exercise far more control over the content, theme, stakes etc of play than Burning Wheel directs them too and yet be a game in which the GM is exercising no more control than a Burning Wheel GM. To me that seems contradictory, and I've never seen an account of actual play that illustrates it happening.I also see posts which seem to assert that there is a fundamental difference between (say) rolling on a wandering monster table and learning that (for instance) 5 Orcs turn up, and rolling on a Camp Events table and learning (for instance) that one Dire Wolf turns up. But what the difference is, is not spelled out. After all, both involve introducing a new element into the fiction. Both are sensitive to the usual sort of in-fiction stuff: where the PCs are, what sort of effort they are making to conceal/protect their camp, etc.When a "world in motion" GM rolls up 5 Orcs, that GM thinks about the stuff they have authored and imagined about Orcs and the stuff they have authored and imagined about this location and, from all that stuff, comes up with a story about what 5 Orcs are doing here.When I rolled up a Dire Wolf, I thought about what is the established fiction - which included the Moathouse in the distance - and how can I build on what the players are trying to have their PCs do - which included trying to get to the Moathouse. I also had in mind the description of Dire Wolves (Scholar's Guide, p 182):These massive, rangy wolves are possessed of a savage lupine intellect - some can even speak the languages of goblins or humans. In the wild, they run in packs and are fiercely territorial; they will not hesitate to attack if threatened or if their cubs are in danger. They tend to be shy creatures but will descend upon isolated settlements if hungry enough. Hobgoblins and orcs frequently capture and enslave dire wolves, training them as brutal mounts.I knew that the Moathouse was inhabited by human bandits, Gnolls and Bugbears; and was led by the Half-Elf Lareth the Beautiful, who "has been sent into this area to rebuild a force of human and Trollish fighter so as to gather loot and restore the Temple to its former glory, joining the Eye of Fire with the Black Void". (In TB2e, "troll" has the same meaning, more-or-less, as does "humanoid" or "giant class" in classic D&D.)So it did not seem unlikely that there would be a Dire Wolf working with the Moathouse forces, and acting as a scout. And so I deemed it thus!Some people would not see any difference between what I have described myself as doing, and what the "world in motion" GM does. If there is a difference, it is rather slight, and is the same as what I have frequently posted - the fundamental difference between player-driven RPGing, and GM-driven RPGing, is the basis on which or, if you prefer, the principles whereby the GM makes decisions about the fiction they introduce. In this particular example, it was the decision to give the Dire Wolf a motivation and origin story, within the fiction, that bound the PCs (and thereby the players) more tightly to their Moathouse goal. As a GM, I take cues from the players.If things take their normal course, than what I now expect, in response to this post, is to be told how (i) "world in motion" GMs also take cues from their players, but (ii) how they also create genuine "living" worlds rather than cardboard cut-outs, stage scenery etc because they draw upon content that has been authored without having the players in mind. It will also be emphasised that (iii) coming to know that non-player-driven content is key to the game experience, although (iv) it's reductive to mention that key to the game experience is the players coming to know that content.</blockquote>

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