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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mistwell" data-source="post: 6372439" data-attributes="member: 2525">It's jargon from an extreme minority of game designer analysis.  <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Fictional+positioning%22++rpgs&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb" target="_blank">Google it</a>, and you will find it's being used on storygame boards, and by storygamers at some other boards, and not by others.  And when you Google it, you will find even on those boards there is frequent confusion over what it means.    Go ahead and ask an ordinary non-RPG person (and someone who does not have a masters or doctoral degree in a humanities topic) if they know what the phrase means, and I suspect you will get a blank stare.No it's used is primarily storygame RPG discussion.  General RPG talk doesn't use the word agency, unless they are talking about a group that has the title of agency, like S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are part of an agency. And of course other English words can be used instead of agency - wow what a lack of imagination to think just that jargon can be used.Both of these words come from, on some level, Ron Edward's <a href="http://indie-rpgs.com/_articles/glossary.html" target="_blank">Glossary of Smug</a> over at the Forge.  They don't aid in general communication, and instead serve to exclude those not familiar with the jargon, so that conversations quickly become insular between a handful of people here.What I think happened is some folks have been using this jargon for so long around like-minded people they've forgotten these words and phrases are part of jargon.  That sort of thing happens in graduate schools and some professions (like marketing, law, medicine), but I figured it's nice to remind people they're using incomprehensible jargon if they seem to not remember anymore.  Now if the intent is to just discuss this between about 6 people here out of the thousands of people on this board...OK, have at it.  Otherwise, you might want to explain your jargon every time you use it...because I suspect you're not communicating with a lot of potential readers of your posts.</blockquote>

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