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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7924672" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't want to go too far down this rabbithole - but if player input hasn't occurred yet then it can't be nullified. Nor can it be modified. It can be instigated.This is what I've been focusing on with [USER=99817]@chaochou[/USER], and [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] around the DL dragon armies case - there are some different analyses going on, and probably more posts I haven't read yet, but my take is that this is not a modification or nullification of player input but nevertheless is force because it guides/manipulates towards an outcome.I agree that it's tricky. That's why (as I may have posted upthread, or maybe in another parallel thread) I think framing is such a key GM skill, especially once the game moves beyond exploration of a pre-mapped-andkeyed site.So you're correct that the fore-ordained conclusion is carrying a lot of weight. But I think this is right. It's what distinguishes the scripted adventure approach (see eg the quotes posted by me and moreso [USER=21169]@Doug McCrae[/USER] upthread from systems like V:tM, James Bond, etc) from what Paul Czege describes <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=1361" target="_blank">here</a> in a classic Forge post:Tim asked if scene transitions were delicate. They aren't. Delicacy is a trait I'd attach to "scene extrapolation," the idea being to make scene initiation seem an outgrowth of prior events, objective, unintentional, non-threatening, but not to the way I've come to frame scenes in games I've run recently.. . . I'm having trouble capturing in dispassionate words what it's like, so I'm going to have to dispense with dispassionate words. By god, when I'm framing scenes, and I'm in the zone, I'm turning a freakin' firehose of adversity and situation on the character. It is not an objective outgrowth of prior events. It's intentional as all get out. We've had a group character session, during which it was my job to find out what the player finds interesting about the character. And I know what I find interesting. I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this. And like Scott's "Point A to Point B" model says, the outcome of the scene is not preconceived.The fact that you have a cool idea for your BitD game doesn't make it force; likewise, as [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER] has pointed out in the past, "no myth" doesn't preclude use of prepared material (whether from a Monster Manual, or some GM write-up, or whatever). It's about preconceived outcomes, or the alternative of openness to how the payers engage the scene and letting it unfold out of that interaction and the interplay of narration and mechanics.I think that Czege's comment about NPCs is also very interesting, and has influenced me a lot. We talk a lot in these threads about "Schroedinger's secret doors" but Czege is pointing out that NPCs can also develop in the same way. (I remember [USER=99817]@chaochou[/USER] causing controversy in <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/should-the-pcs-try-and-capture-the-npc-starship.607662/" target="_blank">one of my Traveller threads</a> by suggesting a similar sort of approach.)I think the Gygax example is both subtle, and also an (unintended, I assume) illustration of a weak point in classic dungeoncrawling D&D.So first, recall that Gygax says on p 9 of his DMG that it would be contrary to the precepts of the game to allow PCs to escape unnaturally. So we're not talking here about revealing a secret door to allow an escape (or, for similar reasons, to find a treasure or whatever). As Gygax says (DMG p 110), it's about "a secret door that leads to a complex of monsters and treasures that will be especially entertaining."This can be handled as a mode of skilled play: eg the PCs hear rumours of a hidden part of the complex, or find a map from a previous (NPC) party's expedition, etc. But it doesn't have to be - most obviously, the 1st level party in the first session don't normally need to learn about the dungeon through skilled play. Or discovery of a dungeon can be a result of a random encounter while travelling through the wilderness.So using a secret door to open up a dungeoneering opportunity isn't, in respect of the opening up, a violation of skilled play precepts. But the use of a secret door as the device is an adaptation of a device invented for skilled play purposes to a different purposes, driven by the lack of devices for introducing new sites other than action resolution of declarations of movement. Contrast this with, say, MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic, where a secret door in an action scene could be a GM-introduced Scene Distinction or a player-introduced Resource or Asset; but in a Transition Scene could easily just be a piece of GM narration.If the loss conditions of the game change, then of course the role of other elements and techniques might also change. That's not a surprise, it's exactly what one would expect.EDIT: I saw this while catching up on the thread, and it belongs in this post:Here we have the framing as force issue right in front of us. It's not literally a manipulation or nullifying of player input, because the input hasn't come yet. Its using a mixture of mechanics (including mechanical limitations, which [USER=99817]@chaochou[/USER] talked about upthread) and fiction to pre-empt or sidestep any meaningful player impact on the shared fiction.In practical, day-to-day RPGing I think this is a big thing.MORE EDIT:Consequences are huge. The capacity for nullifying player input, and manipulating towards a fore-ordained goal, is very real. Getting this right is a hugely important GM skill.</blockquote>

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