NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5718533" data-attributes="member: 42582">No. It obviously is a concern for others, but for me, it's the reason I'm playing D&D at all. If I wanted to GM an actor-stance driven game, I'd be GMing HARP (or perhaps, despite my resolution never to GM it again, Rolemaster).Generally not, although there are exceptions of the "Purple Rose of Cairo"/"Singing Detective" variety.But playing an RPG isn't reading fiction. Nor is GMing it writing fiction. It has a participant/audience dimension. I expect my players to build the gameworld that surrounds their PCs (dwarvish customs, drow cults, fallen human cities, religious observances, etc) and am happy for them to take responsibility (where appropriate) for more immediate aspects of the fiction as well.Yes, but I think it is important not to over-emphasise the degree of transcendence. The players are still expected to advocate for their PCs - they are not expected to suspend that advocacy in order to consider the broader interests of the story. It's just that, in so advocating, they have entry points into the fiction other than those that come from declaring actions on the part of their PCs. It can be as simple as metagaming a convenient rendezvous, or spontaneously inventing a secret hand signal to try and identify fellow cult members among NPCs (the player was hoping for the captain, I gave him a lieutenant). It can be as complex as positing a reason why two gods would conspire to return a PC back to life rather than let him pass into death (which has turned out to be one of the major foci of the campaign - one PC's quest to restore the empire of Nerath by reconstructing the Sceptre of Erathis, aka the Rod of Seven Parts). Sometimes it is inherent in the mechanics - using Come and Get It (unerrated at my table) or choosing to be a Questing Knight (and therefore dictating that the Raven Queen - a divine NPC - has bestowed a quest upon the PC).As I hope comes through in my posts - I certainly don't try and hide it! - the main influences on how I GM 4e are HeroWars/Quest, Maelstrom Storytelling, and Burning Wheel. 4e is not identical to any of these games, either mechanically or in terms of how the fiction is created among the participants (and of course they all differ from one another). But in terms of the expectations these games have about player participation in shaping the fiction, and the GM's responsibility to build the game around the thematic concerns the players evince by the way they build and play their PCs, I think there is a high degree of affinity.</blockquote>

Verification