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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6631286" data-attributes="member: 6696971">I'm using agenda here as the broad goal that underwrites techniques 1 and 2 above (and the resolution mechanics that perpetuate them) have some immutable features that sow tension with one another, at best, or are outright incompatible, at worst. You see it all the time on these boards and elsewhere.  The first time I brought up invoking a nigh-impassable gorge as a complication in an "evade pursuit" skill challenge (where the PC failed a primary Nature check - his effort to locate a scant trail sign while trying to navigate the previously traveled topography in a high speed escape on horseback), several folks (who are definitely in camp 1 above) were incredulous (to say the least).  So much so, "Schrodinger's Gorge" basically became a meme on these boards for a few years.The agenda that 1 above is premised upon (and the system that it relies upon) is interested in a very specific experience and deviation from it is not welcome.  That experience being high resolution (temporally and spatially) exploration whereby the table conversation, play procedures, and resolution mechanics work toward putting each player wholly (insofar as they are capable) and only in the OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) Loop of their character as they move through a "living, breathing, fantasy world."Hard scene framing lowers the temporal and spatial resolution of the setting exploration thus altering the nature of the OODA Loop that the player engages with in the course of the play conversation.  A focus on thematic situation, dramatic stakes, their dynamic resolution, and the fallout of that resolution prioritizes creating exciting Story NOW (!) rather than prioritizing capturing a 1st person, high-res (spatially and temporally) OODA Loop-driven exploration of a fantasy setting.  Actor/director stance capabilities for PCs further subordinates that (some folks will call it "immersive") coupling of the player's OODA Loop with that of the character.  This is, of course, agenda 2.1 and 2 don't do very well together.  You can't "toggle" from one to the other.  Either the system will fight you, or the players will fight you because they feel it is "jarring" (as has been described so many times), or both will fight you.  I am a very good, tenured sim GM, though I do not enjoy it (really at all) anymore.  I am a very good Story NOW (!) GM and I enjoy it utterly.  However, my lack of enthusiasm for 1 and my complete enthusiasm for 2 wouldn't mean anything to certain players.  If I ran a sim game for (say)  [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION], he (she?) would have an absolute ball, regardless of my lack of enjoyment (assuming I don't show it).  If I ran an awesome Dungeon World, 4e, Dogs in the Vineyward, Shadows of Yesterday or anything Cortex + for Saelorn, the level of awesome that comes out of play and my own immense enjoyment wouldn't carry the day.  The experience would flat out suck for him (her).</blockquote>

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