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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5500172" data-attributes="member: 54877">Yes, exactly. I want to build on that by going backwards. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> I liked your examples as where we are today, but it might also help to use some earlier thoughts, back long before I had ever heard of "shared authorship" or the like, or had even much considered it in game theory manner. Likewise, this was before I knew of "Say Yes" in any of its forms. To me, there was really three basic options that existed for all game decisions: I cared about something in particular, I was neutral, or I was uninterested. Note that neutral and uninterested can seem similar to on the outside, but aren't--because we are talking about decision points here. So if I'm neutral between door A or door B, I can be engaged in the pick. I merely don't have a preference when the decision making starts. If I'm uninterested, though, I just want the decision made by someone else, preferably quickly, and then get on to something that I find more compelling. That is pretty dull when you look at only one person, even if they are a Viking-Hat wearing, Chattanooga Choo Choo, Train Driving, fill the session with an Immense Rainbow of Color and Dramatic Voices fool. Or any other extreme you care to pick. Then somewhere in that early poking around with what made games sing, it also occurred to me that all the players basically broke down into those same three categories. Only their care, neutral, uninterested choices were all somewhat different than mine and each others' choices. Out of these combinations emerged some fairly interesting game play that I had not seen before. Somewhere in here was where I really got interested in large groups, because as we emphasized the interactions between the particpants, and their different interests, it became apparent that mild conflict, factions, etc. driving the game became exponentially more entertaining with each player introduced, and this increased entertainment could cancel out the negative effects of large groups to some extent (though of course with diminishing returns). So the very first and most productive way that we explored shared authorship in my current group, when we started over 20 years ago, was that people didn't so much assert narrative control as assert their interests. Example: LaGesp the mage diplomat meets a cowardly but well spoken goblin. I have no particular interest in this goblin, but she seems interested, so I play along. And of course she wants to know the name of said goblin. I blurt out something, which turns out to be ridiculous. So it becomes a running gag in the game, because who knew she would bring the goblin under her protection so that she could learn to speak "goblin" while on her journey, and the goblin would later become a valued NPC?  I like running gags as much as anyone, but this is precisely the point at which shared narrative control can work so much better, especially since there was a deluge of NPCs that were unimportant, but needed names all the time simply to deal with the occasional one that would spark interest. Example: Same player, 20 some odd years later. Velvet the wizard meets a military commander. She asks for a name. I say, "I don't know, you tell me." She isn't that interested. So the commander remains simply, "the commander". We don't waste time on it, since no one cares. Later, she meets a halfing merchant. In the course of the conversation, she starts to care. She asks something about the merchant's background. I don't know, and don't care. I say, "You tell me." She makes something up that interest her. Off we go. Later still she meets a minor soldier, who isn't that important in the whole scheme of things, but I find the character interesting. I've got a name and background for the little gnome.  Players express interest. I either fill that interest, OR I defer to that player to fill it. If the player isn't that interested after all, they might opt to not fill it. Then another player gets interested and jumps in--or not. The net result is that if we are spending time on something, it interests someone, and if it interests someone, there is a good chance it will start to interest most of the rest of us. It is contagious.  That is organic growth of narrative control started, in part, by a long ago realization that I didn't need a name for every NPC that the group could possible meet, and even if I did need a name, it wasn't giving away the store to let the players supply the name. When something really matters to the campaign--i.e. the narrative control that I am not giving up--then I don't give it up. For shared narrative control, you need both soft and hard areas--soft to explore, and hard to butt up against. Having the soft areas means everyone gets to exert some narrative control. Accepting that hard areas have their uses, is a little bit of "judo gaming" that turns the problem of competing narrative control into a virtue.</blockquote>

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