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Introducing Complications Without Forcing Players to Play the "Mother May I?" Game
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7561060" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>You'll have also noted, then, that I expressly stated my lack of consensus on that poster's account of OSR gaming.</p><p></p><p>But the bigger point came up a year or two ago in a discussion between [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6703052]SA[/MENTION]elorn (I think my tagging won't work here because Saelorn has me blocked). Saelorn ran a line similar to [MENTION=6931283]Alexander Kalinowski[/MENTION], that all the players ever do in the context of a RPG is to make suggestions to the GM about how the fiction might change, and the GM actually makes all such decisions.</p><p></p><p>chaochou's response to this was that, in a literal sense, it meant that only the GM actually <em>played the game</em> (ie made decisions that affect the state of the game, which in the context of a RPG is the content of the shared fiction). Other participants were simply advisers or kibitzers.</p><p></p><p>I take [MENTION=6985982]Enthusiastic Grog[/MENTION] to have been making a similar point - if everything about the shared fiction is the GM's unilateral decision, then only the GM is actually playing the game.</p><p></p><p>I guess it would be possible to recharacterise the nature of the game - eg for non-GM participants, <em>playing the game</em> means <em>making suggestions to the GM which s/he may have regard to in deciding how the fiction changes</em>. But that would seem to reinforce the thought that we're talking about a "Mother may I" style of play, I think.</p><p></p><p>The most obvious way to rebut that thought is to show how the players, too, are playing the game in the sense of having the power to change the content of the shared fiction. This is why I think the difference between <em>GM unilaterally decides</em> and <em>GM, as referee, sets a difficulty for a throw</em> is one of night and day.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7561060, member: 42582"] You'll have also noted, then, that I expressly stated my lack of consensus on that poster's account of OSR gaming. But the bigger point came up a year or two ago in a discussion between [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6703052]SA[/MENTION]elorn (I think my tagging won't work here because Saelorn has me blocked). Saelorn ran a line similar to [MENTION=6931283]Alexander Kalinowski[/MENTION], that all the players ever do in the context of a RPG is to make suggestions to the GM about how the fiction might change, and the GM actually makes all such decisions. chaochou's response to this was that, in a literal sense, it meant that only the GM actually [I]played the game[/I] (ie made decisions that affect the state of the game, which in the context of a RPG is the content of the shared fiction). Other participants were simply advisers or kibitzers. I take [MENTION=6985982]Enthusiastic Grog[/MENTION] to have been making a similar point - if everything about the shared fiction is the GM's unilateral decision, then only the GM is actually playing the game. I guess it would be possible to recharacterise the nature of the game - eg for non-GM participants, [I]playing the game[/I] means [I]making suggestions to the GM which s/he may have regard to in deciding how the fiction changes[/I]. But that would seem to reinforce the thought that we're talking about a "Mother may I" style of play, I think. The most obvious way to rebut that thought is to show how the players, too, are playing the game in the sense of having the power to change the content of the shared fiction. This is why I think the difference between [I]GM unilaterally decides[/I] and [I]GM, as referee, sets a difficulty for a throw[/I] is one of night and day. [/QUOTE]
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