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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7283913" data-attributes="member: 16814">Actually, no, I followed that very well.  The contention is that skill shouldn't normatively determine spotlight.  You disagreed.  Totally on the same page.  I disagree.  The strange turn is really on your odd definition of skill.And, here we end up with the subtle twist in meaning.  You start talking about engagement but end up talking about doing a good job engaging the mechanical levers of the game to realize your intent -- you swapped the goals from a measure of engagement to a measure of knowledge and skill at realizing that engagement.  That's the bit that doesn't work; you cannot measure willingness to engage with system mastery.Being able to use the system, or manipulate your peers (as I'm fairly certain you do), to seize and hold spotlight time is indeed a skill.  It doesn't measure enthusiasm or willingness to try, though, and that's what was being talked about before you tried to conflate the two. No.  Logical fail.  They may be coexistent, but one doesn't directly imply the other.  You can be skillful and timid, or not timid and unskilled.  To read this in the best light possible for you, it's somewhat fair to say that timid players will often not be afforded the necessary experience to become skilled.  But, to that point, opinions like yours don't help that not be true.Yes, it does.  What they're enjoying isn't the spotlight, it's the scene unfolding in the spotlight. Watching is fun, too, and, when you take turns being the focus in a game, you have to also enjoy those moments of story unfolding that aren't the ones you're driving.I've had a massive number of moments in games I've enjoyed, and often I'm in the spotlight for them.  The side discussion about Lash and Ricardo that [MENTION=2205]Hobo[/MENTION] and I have be having contained a number of them.  But, the single best moment in a game I've ever been a part of my character wasn't in the spotlight -- I had nothing to do with that moment, but it was amazing.I have to feel that your arguments regarding shared spotlight are a bodge that you're using to mitigate the fact that you think it's appropriate for you to occupy the spotlight as much as possible through manipulation and "skill" by saying that the other players are sharing your spotlight, so it's okay, they get your leftovers.  I disagree with this, both as a DM and as a player.  In fact, even as a player I help point the spotlight in other directions by encouraging other players to use their abilities and stories to affect the story that encompasses us all.  I help by not trying to take over when they are trying to work through a scene and by enjoying the failures as much as the successes.  Clearly, from my discussions with Hobo, I'm well aware that failures can often be as much, if not more, fun than successes.   [MENTION=2205]Hobo[/MENTION] seems to assert the contrary - as do ou when you say that "both players are really alternating the spotlight in roughly equal measure". Again, I disagree. Turning from metaphor to literal cases, there is a difference between a spotlight flitting from dancer to dancer, and a spotlight on a couple dancing together. There is a difference between back-and-forth cuts from the face of one actor to the face of another, and the shooting of a scene where both actors are in frame and one gets to see the two together.To turn from "spotlight" to MitFH's word "attention": it is possible to attend to more than one character at the same time, if they are engaging the fiction together.</blockquote>But if you're 'attending' to more than one thing at a time, we already have a concept for that: divided attention.I violently disagree with that.  This is an excuse for dominating the game and they laying blame on the other players for being not skilled enough to wrest control from you.No, it isn't.  Just because that's how you play player-driven games doesn't mean that's how those games are meant to be played.  In fact, most GM advice for those games on the topic explicitly mentions engaging player hooks through framing and doesn't mention letting that one player that is attempting to drive the whole game to do so if they have the requisite skill and the other players lack it.It does not default to a player-driven game, but it can be played that way.  It defaults to a DM driven game, as that's what all the adventure material published for it presents.  Ignoring that and that saying your interpretation is the default is a strong version of ignoring evidence to support your conclusion.  Again, 4e can easily work the way you play it -- there's nothing wrong with that approach at all and I'm glad you enjoy it that way -- but the overwhelming evidence is that its presented as a DM driven game.As far the last sentiment, the idea that spotlight time is zero-sum does not preclude collaborative storytelling in mutually reinforcing ways.  Having never experienced a game run by either myself or Hobo, I find it odd that you feel expert enough to dismiss our games as not having these elements in quantities at least as great as your own games.  Having read some of your play examples, and having been in two of Hobo's games in the past, I can tell you that the level of collaboration in Hobo's games is at least as great as they are presented in yours.  Yet, he agrees with me that spotlight time is zero-sum.  Weird, yeah?[/QUOTE]

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