pemerton said:
just because I have notes that say that such-and-such might happen at the baron's funeral (or celebration) that doesn't mean that the shared fiction does, or will, include any such thing. As it happened there was no funeral (the PCs saved the baron from the catoblepas come to kill him) nor any celebration (instead the baron collapsed upon learning of his niece's death at the hands of the PCs).
Do you consider this some sense of illusionism, though? If I understand that term as it's been used in this thread, it mostly relates to the illusion of choice or of consequence of choice being used by the GM. Does this flexibility with the true origin of a story element....let's use the yellow skulker as the example....kind of fall into that same category?
Well, I don't think so. What's the illusion being perpetrated on the players?
It's not as if some fate or future for the skulker has already been settled, and - as GM - I am manipulating outcomes of action resolution, behind-the-scenes fiction, etc, to bring that about. Quite the opposite!
No, you have not used the word thwart....but every example you've provided has been one where the GM thwarts the PCs' ideas. The secret door example you just provided is the first benign example of this that I've seen you use.
Personally I can't see any difference: the player has an idea that there might be a secret door there, and the GM "thwarts" it.
That's not to say that there's not a difference that is salient to you. But I will have to leave it to you to articulate that. From my point of view, the examples don't differ in terms of some being bad thwartings and others benign narrations of the gameworld. I see the GM narrating the absence of a secret door (because the notes say there isn't one there), narrating the court or the baron rebuffing the PCs (because the notes record facts about an assassination, or a kidnapping, that is as-yet unknown to the PCs) or narrating the unavailability of silk (because the notes say the country it is imported from is in turmoil) as all on a par, as far as GMing techniques are concerned.
My point though is that this criteria that you described doesn't seem to actually bar the AP style traditional GM driven game, depending on the players' desires and expectations. So as such, it doesn't seem to be a criteria for a player driven game.
All I can really do is reiterate that a desire to play whatever it is the GM is offering up isn't an interest or concern of the sort I was referring to.
If I ask, "What film would you like to see?" and you answer "I don't care - whatever's showing", then I just don't think there's any interesting sense in which, in choosing a film for us to see, I have taken your desires into account in refining the selection. Rather, you didn't have any desires that needed to be taken into account.
The same thing is applying, mutatis mutandis, in this case.
Regardless of PC creation methods, or statistics, the player can say to the GM "I kind of want this character to be haunted by his past...he's done some things he's ashamed of, and is working toward some kind of redemption, but he's not sure that's even possible at this point."
That's an idea that a GM can take in so many directions. My current game has a PC with that very backstory involved. As a result, I created a mercenary company he had been a member of, and an entire group of supporting NPCs that he has a past with, and an NPC villain that usurped the mercenary company. I then figured out a way to tie this group into some of the other stories that have been established. All of this helps to constantly bring up elements of the group's past actions, and therefore the PC's past, in the current game. So he is constantly being reminded of his dark past and having to deal with that.
It's a major part of our game, and it was entirely inspired by the player having an idea for his PC. He had the initial idea, and then I came up with some details and shared them with him, and we kind of tweaked them till we were both satisfied, and then we incorporated it into the game. Now, I will admit that I did have some elements in mind that I kept from him....I want there to be elements of this story that still need to be discovered.
Suppose it was
the player who decides what the shameful thing was, works up some details on the mercenary company, etc. And then you, as GM, are expected to make that a focus of the game. For me, using the terminology I've been using, that's probably something I would think of as a player-driven rather than a GM-driven game.
Conversely, suppose the player comes up with the idea of a shameful past, but leaves it for the GM to work out the details, and/or to choose whether and how to really incorporate it into the game: then I would think of it as a GM-driven rather than a player-driven game.
What you describe sounds somewhat intermediate between those two cases, and from what you've said I'm not going to attempt such an invidious task as classification on a think evidence base when I wasn't there! But I hope the two cases I've outlined give you some sense of what I think the salient differences are.
Another way to try and get at the same point: I find the idea of "side quests" vs the "main plot" quite inimical. I see the idea of "side quests" as the GM somehow incorporating or at least giving a substantive tip of the hat to a player's character-based motivations/desires; but in so far as they contrast with the "main plot", they are secondary, and so - if more than
mere tips of the hat - still somewhere in that general territory. Whereas, if the GM is framing every situation having regard to these matters, then the "side quest" vs "main plot" distinction completely breaks down.
And yet another way: if, in the adventure, I could replace the Princess to be rescued with Blackrazor to be recovered, but all the rest of the scenario (the obstacles, the opponents, the fetch quests, etc) could remain unchanged, then it is not an example of what I'm talking about. Because even if the McGuffin (and in this case it really is a McGuffin) is sensitive to players' expressed concerns/interests/PC motivations, the nuts-and-bolts of the scenario are not.
I'm not saying your game does (or doesn't) exemplify any of these features. I don't know. They're just different ways to try to convey what I'm getting at, and what I see the salient contrasts to be.
