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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7283365" data-attributes="member: 996">That's an example of a&nbsp; judgement about the nature of spotlight time - that it can't be shared, only divided into smaller and smaller portions - which'd, conveniently, make aportioning it zero-sum.&nbsp; That has implications for the designer of the game (player choices need to be niche-protected and/or limited availability to avoid stepping on each others toes), and for the GM running it (scenarios should cycle each player through a roughly equal ration of spotlight time).&nbsp; OTOH, if spotlight time is considered shareable, then it's more important to balance player options than to segregate or limit them, and less important to shape scenarios around enforcing such limitations or pressures.I don't think either judgement is invalid.&nbsp; The former can be seen very clearly in the design of D&amp;D and some of the ways better DMs tend to run it - the way it looks when it's not working so well should also be familiar to anyone who's played that game - or listened to players complain about their DMs.The latter seems like what FATE and various indie games games shoot for in bringing players into 'scene framing' and the like.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 7283365, member: 996"] That's an example of a judgement about the nature of spotlight time - that it can't be shared, only divided into smaller and smaller portions - which'd, conveniently, make aportioning it zero-sum. That has implications for the designer of the game (player choices need to be niche-protected and/or limited availability to avoid stepping on each others toes), and for the GM running it (scenarios should cycle each player through a roughly equal ration of spotlight time). OTOH, if spotlight time is considered shareable, then it's more important to balance player options than to segregate or limit them, and less important to shape scenarios around enforcing such limitations or pressures. I don't think either judgement is invalid. The former can be seen very clearly in the design of D&D and some of the ways better DMs tend to run it - the way it looks when it's not working so well should also be familiar to anyone who's played that game - or listened to players complain about their DMs. The latter seems like what FATE and various indie games games shoot for in bringing players into 'scene framing' and the like. [/QUOTE]

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