Judgement calls vs "railroading"

[Ilbranteloth]

Everything the GM does is through moves. In fact, once play begins that's really his only tool since he doesn't get any dice.

Let me digress and discuss moves a little first. In general, player moves are usually really generic. I find it better to think of a player move as a defined resolution mechanic that the GM helps the player pick from based on what the PC is trying to accomplish. "My character cuts the bottom of a vine and swings across the chasm" becomes a Defy Danger move with specific attributes involved for the roll.

The GM's moves are different than a player's, of course. Both sets are often very generic, but the GM's are even more so. Rather than a move of "Defy Danger" like a player may choose, the DM gets moves like "Reveal an Unwelcome Truth" or "Use up Their Resources". The GM makes a move whenever a player rolls a failure OR when the players are waiting for something to happen (or if the situation is irresistible -- like a character says "Piece of cake. What could possibly go wrong?"). GM moves are designed to keep the action flowing and don't really represent much more than the typical narration and action/reaction of the environment most games have.

Digression over. Let's suppose a fight between the PCs and a guard breaks out. One of the PCs attempts to hit the guard with a weapon (this is the Hack and Slash player move), but the player rolls a total of 4 on 2d6 + Strength. Oops, a complete failure result. The GM gets to make a move. He might decide the guard strikes back (Deal Damage move), raises a horn to signal the rest of the band (Show signs of approaching threat), turn tail and run (Shows signs of approaching threat, Put someone on the Spot if they get a shot to interfere, or Change the Environment into a chase), or the guard may have a specific move defined in the stat block that is appropriate.

Now if the player had rolled 7 - 9 instead of <=6, the GM doesn't get a move. The guard takes damage and something happens to the PC because of the partial success. The typical side effect is the PC takes damage as the guard hits back, but it can be any GM move specifically targeting the PC that failed that makes sense within the situation.

So if the same group is having easy success at the gate and the GM gets an opportunity to play a move, perhaps the PCs hear the tumult of people scattering and see the prize they've come for being taken down one hallway (Offer an opportunity/Offer an opportunity with cost). as the camp scatters as best it can.

It comes back to the GM being in control of the developing fiction and moves. Moves are defined in two categories: Hard and Soft. A hard move has immediate irrevocable consequence like taking damage, losing gear, etc. A Soft move adjusts the situation the PCs find themselves within often ramping up the danger of potential consequence of further failure. The general expectation is the GM uses a Soft move to get the players moving and a Hard move most other times especially in reaction to failures and partial successes. But there are no strong rules around whether the GM should use a Hard or Soft move since Soft moves are often a reasonable environmental response.

The primary way I'll call "Lead the horse to water and force it to drink". One of the GMing principles for Dungeon World is "Play to find out what happens". You're not supposed to plan too thoroughly and let the fiction go where the play experience takes you. But let's say I'm a GM who really really wants a particular scene to occur. Let's say I just watched Slither or Alien and I want the party to bring an outsider into the group that is acting as a host to a terrible evil so I can have it explode open at an inopportune time.

I want the inclusion of the Trojan Horse to be the PCs idea so that they will be caught off guard by the event when it does happen. Since I'm in complete control as to how the fiction responds and the scene unfold I can lead the group to the base situation. I design the Trojan Horse to be something that looks pitiable and something one or more of the players or characters is likely to respond to -- a sick pregnant woman, a lost and starving hound, whatever is appropriate and when the PCs try to approach/aid the creature I make a show of asking for a Move to successfully tend/befriend the Torjan Horse expecting at least a partial success and simple inclusion in the group from that point forward. The player fails the move. Now the expectation is I as GM will make a Move to reflect that failure and keep momentum going. As a move in reaction, it should be a Hard move resulting in a change where the gambit the PC was pursuing can't pay off. But I want it to happen so I make a Soft move. Instead of the creature dying/running off in the night/attacking or whatever, I introduce a secondary threat and give the PCs a chance to save themselves AND the Trojan Horse. If they fail again, I can continue to use a Move that doesn't prevent the adoption of the Trojan Horse into the group until such time as the group finally succeeds or I give up as my interference grows too blatant. If I gave up, I can simply introduce a new Trojan Horse in the next couple of scenes until I get the result I want.

Part of what I struggled with (and perhaps it's just because it never became second nature) is the design of the game itself.

The move mechanic still feels very, very foreign to me. Why do I have to have a "move" to blow a horn? Why isn't it just blowing a horn?

Does running mean you have to choose between shows signs of an advancing threat, put someone on the spot, or change the environment, or can all three occur? Why can't they just turn and run, and the players each tell me how they react?

Overall, it just felt to "gamey" to me, like the focus was on following the rules, rather than just following the characters. One of the main reasons I've yet to find a video game, as immersive as they are, provide anything remotely like the experience of playing D&D since literally almost anything can happen.

I understand the concepts behind the system (at least some of them) and that the focus is on keeping the action flowing. Part of it is because I don't consider a primary purpose of being a DM as keeping the action flowing. Yes, I want to ensure that things don't get stuck, but really I see it as the PCs responsibility to keep things flowing. I'm not interested in making a soft move to move the characters along, because I think things are too slow, unless they are too slow because of a mistake I've made.

They are the ones making the decisions. So I let them do so without my interference.

Your example of the Trojan Horse is a good one in terms of showing that even games that are supposed to prevent DM overreach, it's going to be possible in just about any system you can design.

 

[pemerton]

Either I'm really missing something here or this is saying the player-as-character is banned from the option of simply Doing Nothing in a given situation even when such would make sense. This seems...odd.

Generally, I like to present situations in such a way that the players, in playing their characters, have a reason to act. This goes back to Eero Tuovinen's "standard narrativistic model":

One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . . .

Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character . . . The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules.​

If a player's response to a situation that I frame is to have his/her PC do nothing, then I've clearly framed a dud scene. In practice, because these things are happening via back-and-forth, if I can see that the situation I'm narrating is not engaging the player(s) via their PC(s), I'll change focus or add something in to correct for the initial misfiring.

Read literally, this tells me nothing can happen in your game just for the hell of it or for no particular reason other than "because", which sounds stiflingly dull.

In your game, would the following exchange be able to occur:

Player (whose character has rarely expressed interest in shopping and has never mentioned silk before): "Hey guys, I'm going to head into town and pick up some silk - Calimshite, preferably. Anyone want some?"
DM (to whom this comes right out of the blue): "Er...any particular reason why?"
Player: "Nah, just tired of these old trail duds, thought I could make something out of silk to wear instead now the weather's warmed up"
DM: <either says yes or rolls the dice>

I guess it could happen. I don't think it would happen - it doesn't sound all that interesting. A bit of light colour, perhaps. Certainly not worthy of a check.

More generally, I don't see why the idea of most action declarations having a purpose behind them, connected to the stakes of the evolving ingame circumstances, is dull. Whereas, given that I find shopping for clothes in real life rather tedious, why would I want to spend my leisure time pretending to be shopping for clothes?

We're right back to my somewhat silly example of Schroedinger's diamonds from about a jillion pages ago, where as a player I can bring diamonds into existence in the game world just by having my character search for them. Players shouldn't be able to punch their own ticket to a solution like this and so easily bypass the challenge.

That's kind of the point, though. In my preferred approach, there is no the challenge. If the PCs enter the fortress via a secret door, the GM's job is to narrate the resultant situation in such a way that it contains complication that forces a choice.

it adds to the depth of the game world if not everything revolves around the PCs and their own interests and it adds to the mystery (not to mention believability) if there's always a level of question whether any given thing is in fact relevant to the PCs or not.

My game has plenty of mystery without the additional mystery of "Do we have any reason to care about this?"

As for depth: in my personal experience I haven't found random encounters with owlbears to add all that much depth. I tend to find that the "depth" of the gameworld is a product of immersion in compelling ingame situations, rather than a product of the accumulation of random details.

From the players' side this seems like nothing more than splitting hairs. They see the yellow-robed guy, eventually realize he's more significant than first thought, dig further, and learn some things about his motivations-goals-personality-history-etc.

Whether you decide he's engaged to the Baron's niece a) on the spot during a played session (i.e. from what's already in the DM's brain) or b) 6 years ahead of time in your world design phase (i.e. from what's already in the DM's notes) doesn't matter a whit to the players at the table.

The last claim is not true. It makes a huge difference, as a player, if I'm trying to divine the content of the GM's notes or if I'm trying to play my character, engage the fiction, and find out what sort of stuff ensues.

The illusion is in making a) and b) above completely indistinguishable from the players' side

But they're not.

You-as-DM still decided it, and they as players still learned it.

Again, all I can do is reiterate: there is a huge difference between playing a game in which the goal is to discover (say) whether or not the GM has decided that the Dusk War is pending, and playing a game where your PCs are trying to show to the cosmos that the Dusk War is not pending, and you (as a player) are trying as hard to do that as your PCs are.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

[MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION]
The basics of the techniques outlined in Apocalypse World work well in pretty much most games. Amongst D&D Versions I think they work best in B/X. 5e would probably come next, although I would strip out Inspiration and Feats. They could be made to work decently with 1e or 2e (without all the crazy supplements). I know from experience they work really well with Stars Without Number which is a B/X clone. I would not use them with 3e because of all the active management needed to make the rules work. I also would not use 4e because 4e works best as 4e. Basically the more tightly wedded to particular mechanics that require DM intervention and the rest cycle the less well it works. You really do not want to worry about things like balancing encounters and adventuring days. That probably speaks to my own preferences for handling time though. I feel like the specific principles should be tuned to what you're after though.

Burning Wheel is a different story though. The specific techniques are intimately tied into its mechanical features. It is a highly integrated design. I feel like Burning Wheel should be played as Burning Wheel.

Maybe I spent too much time looking at BW and DW and not enough at AW.

Although your point about tuning to specific principles (like balancing encounters and adventuring days - both of which I've more or less eliminated), is the key for me. My interest in learning more about how the games work is to mine ideas for my homebrew at this point. I don't think I'll really ever have the time (or a group) to play other games at this stage. Having said that, I would be happy to play it at a convention sometime.

I still really enjoy these threads though, they help me identify more of what I want and don't want, which ultimately helps me fine-tune my game. Aside from that, perhaps my questions (or outright ignorance sometimes...often?) will produce answers that will help others and might very well steer them toward some of the indie games.

Time to go dig up AW again and reread it...

 

[Ilbranteloth]

The last claim is not true. It makes a huge difference, as a player, if I'm trying to divine the content of the GM's notes or if I'm trying to play my character, engage the fiction, and find out what sort of stuff ensues.

...

Again, all I can do is reiterate: there is a huge difference between playing a game in which the goal is to discover (say) whether or not the GM has decided that the Dusk War is pending, and playing a game where your PCs are trying to show to the cosmos that the Dusk War is not pending, and you (as a player) are trying as hard to do that as your PCs are.

I guess I'm also having difficulty understanding the difference. I certainly don't think, no actually I know my players can't tell the difference, because we've had discussions and they have told me that. They are surprised about what I know ahead of time, and what I don't. And if they try to guess, they are often (usually?) wrong.

Actually, the opposite has been an issue, although the players didn't identify it as such. I try to take good notes about what's going on in the campaign, in an easy way to quickly retrieve said notes when needed. But of course, sometimes I don't, or I forget something.

So it's much more likely for me to forget something when I don't have notes (either before or during the session) and they notice an inconsistency, or something I've forgotten (from a year-and-a-half ago).

Preparing it ahead of time just means I don't have to take those notes during the session (or recreate them after the session).

Aside from keeping good notes, I use a few simple techniques to keep things flowing smoothly. Probably the most important one is a big list of names so that everybody they meet has a name. Being able to give a quick description of a person (even if I can't do voices or mannerisms myself), is also very important. It doesn't matter if the NPC was prepared before the session or not. It needs to feel like that person was there in the world all along.

Anyway, I'm curious as to what the difference is from your perspective. What is the huge difference? How does it present itself from the player's perspective? Especially since you seem to be in agreement that developing a motivation on the spot doesn't constitute any worse or illusory scenario as a motivation that was predetermined.

My only real guess is that since you seem to take a more active role in writing the fiction as it happens as a GM than I do, that you can better tailor the material to the moment if it is not predetermined. But I don't know why you can't take something predetermined and modify it as needed. You've also pointed out plenty of situations where you've had predetermined content, other than not knowing exactly how or when it will come into play.

The most important thing that I think you're still missing, at least in regards to my campaigns, is that the goal is never to discover whats in my notes. The character's goals are the character's goals in the world, and that's it. I might know there's a war brewing, and the PCs may be off on their adventures completely oblivious to it. War may actually break out. If it does in a region where they are presently adventuring, it might have a direct impact. Otherwise, they'll just hear of it amongst the news and rumors of the day.

Their goals are simply to do whatever it is they decide their goals are. They might be looking for "easy" wealth, or maybe they're looking for a wife. I've had both in my campaigns. It all depends on the player and their character. I still have information about the village they are in, the people that live there, some of the stuff there is to explore around them, and current events both local and distant. It's there for them to explore or not. They might (and often do) go off in a completely different direction. That's cool too.

The reason this is 100% true, is that I can't set their goals. Only the players can decide on the goals for their characters. I can make suggestions. I can certainly railroad them and make it obvious that if they are going to play with me, then they are going on this adventure dammit. But that's not my game. They decide what they do, when they do it, and how. If I'm lucky, it ties into some things I already know, since it makes it easier for me. Otherwise I improvise. Both are equally useful techniques, and both have their place in my campaign. The art of DMing is to make it seamless.

 

[pemerton]

Because the skulker's motivation has not yet been determined, so it is assumed he has a motivation of some sort....the players may guess at that motivation, which in turn could give the GM ideas on what to do....

It's not concrete....it's mutable.

It's concrete, but unknown.

In the real world, people act based on the information they have. In the RPG, the players act on the information they have. So from the point of view of PC habitation, there's no issue.

From the point of view of RPG play (as I said to [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] not far upthread), the difference is between the players trying to find a way to learn what is in the GM's notes, and the players (like their PCs) hoping to impose their will upon the world. I happen to prefer the second approach.

It sounds to me like the players are free to attempt to introduce solutions to their problems via this method. They find themselves cornered in a room in some way? Oh, let's check for a secret door!

<sip>

It seems like this method could be easily abused to create deus ex machina type events that allow PCs to bypass challenges.

This seems to be assuming a GM-driven game: there is the challenge, which the PCs have to deal with rather than bypass; and there are only certain legitimate ways to deal with that challenge - finding a secret door is not one of them!

But, as I replied to Lanefan, if the game is being run in the style described by Eero Tuovinen's "standard narrativistic model", or the GMing instructions I quoted not far upthread from the BW rulebooks, then that assumption doesn't hold good. The GM's job is to "go where the action is" and to introduce complications that force players to make choices. I can do that whether or not the PCs find a secret door.

 

[pemerton]

My issue with the whole secret door thing is that it makes it so that the PCs will always find every secret door. If they succeed, they find the secret door. If they fail, there was no secret door there to fail to find.

Why do you say this?

Maybe the PCs fail, and the next thing that happens is that the secret door they failed to find opens and a horde of goblins pours out of it.

 

[pemerton]

That's not the way I look at it. It's not driven by my concerns. It's driven by the world and what makes sense for the people in it. Yes, as the DM I have a hand in the authoring of the world. But I'm presenting "just the facts"

<snip>

I don't really see how this is "driven by my concerns." It has some potential adventure hooks, but other than the hooks, those adventures haven't been written. If they take one, then we'll see where it leads.

I see it as being driven entirely from the PC's concerns. The PC is the one that says they want to go buy the silk, and their questioning is what leads to additional hooks.

The reason I describe it as "GM-driven" and as driven by the GM's interests/concerns is because the world, the events in it, the reactions of the NPCs, the hooks, the possibilities, have all been authored by the GM (or taken by the GM from something someone else wrote).

The reason I say I don't see it as "framing the scene" is because I'm specifically not trying to make the scene interesting, or tying it into the motivation of the PCs. I'm not trying to make it uninteresting, I'm just not actively trying to steer it in any specific direction.

<snip>

My goal is to present the world uncolored by my wishes in regards to story line/fiction. I love detailing the world itself, and the motivation of the others that live their. But all of that is still just scenery and color until the PCs interact with it.

The most important thing that I think you're still missing, at least in regards to my campaigns, is that the goal is never to discover whats in my notes. The character's goals are the character's goals in the world, and that's it.

But the choices that are made ("prices are high", "everyone else holds firm on price", "rumours of war") are all made by the GM. And they do seem to steer the fiction in a certain direction - at least, they certainly steer it away easy access to silk.

In so far as the world looms large in play, and imposes constraints on and consequences for player action declarations for their PCs, it is the GM's vision of the world that seems to be paramount. The players, in the course of play, learn more about that. That is what I mean by "learning what is in the GM's notes". The player, by (say) having his/her PC looking around for the seller of silk at the the lowest price, is learning something about the GM's account/conception of the world. The shared fiction isn't being established in response to, and as part of the context of, the players declaring actions for their characters.

What I get out of the BW/DW recommended approach (which may be incorrect) is that you're always trying to tie every scene into the motivations and story of the PCs. To me that sounds like the story is being driven by the DM's concern - or their interpretation of what the players/characters are looking for.

Upthread of your post, I posted this about the role of the GM and player in BW (pp 268-69 (Revised); 551-52 (Gold)):

In Burning Wheel, it is the GM's job to interpret all of the varous intents of the players' actions and mesh them into a cohesive whole that fits within the context of the game. He's got to make sure that all the player wackiness abides by the rules. . . . Often this requires negotiating an action or intent until both player and GM are satisfied that it fits both the concept and the mood of the game. . . .

[T]he players . . . have duties . . . [to] offer hooks to their GM and the other players in the form of Beliefs, Instincts and Traits . . .​

The player offers the hooks. The GM responds to them. If there is uncertainty we talk (as I posted upthread, I am not interested in GMing blind). That's part of the force of Luke Crane's comparison of GMing Moldvay Basic to a cross between telephone and pictionary. In Basic the GM isn't talking to the players in that way, kibitzing with them, negotiating the framing with them. But in BW this is standard stuff. The GM isn't "guessing" or "interpreting" (I'm assuming we can put aside the philosophical questions of solipsism, other minds, etc in this context).

Just like creating the motivation on the fly isn't better or worse, neither is creating it ahead of time.

I guess I'm also having difficulty understanding the difference. I certainly don't think, no actually I know my players can't tell the difference, because we've had discussions and they have told me that. They are surprised about what I know ahead of time, and what I don't.

For me, at least, it's not about creating on the fly. It's about the context of and rationale for authoring the motivation. I prefer it to emerge from the play of the game - ie roughly, as an output; not an input.

As a player, I think it's not that hard to tell when the GM is running the game based on his/her (pre-)conception of the fiction, rather than in response to the players' hooks.

My point is that "going where the action is," at least as I've seen it explained, is that you skip past the boring parts.

I've already posted this several times. Here it is again:

One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is)​

By "going where the action is" I mean framing scenes according to dramatic need: ie picking up on the players' hooks.

But I do think it's good advice to GMs to (in general) avoid boring stuff. (Obviously what is boring is relative. As I posted upthread to [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], I find shopping for clothes boring in real life and boring in game also. I wouldn't suppose that's a universal view.)

Most people I know agree that 4e put combat front-and-center.

All I'm saying is that you're the one who drew the inference from conflict to combat, and it's in your game, not mine that the players' response to an angry bear was to kill it.

 

[pemerton]

A novelist, screenwriter etc does (at least) two things in relation to the fiction:

(1) establishes the characters, including their "dramatic needs";

(2) writes scenes in which those characters are forced to make choices that are driven by, reveal further things about, and potentially change, those "dramatic needs".​

In a RPG with a fairly traditional player/GM divide - and everyone in this thread is posting about those sorts of RPGs - these functions are not located in the same person. Roughly speaking, the players do (1) and the GM does (2).

If the GM does (2) indepdently of the players - which is the default presentation of GMing in D&D (4e is a bit of an exception, but not a total one), and many other RPGs also, especially the ones [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] calls "mainstream" - then unless the players do (1) in response, there is no guarantee that (2) and (1) will actually mesh. But if the players do (1) in response, then the fiction is being driven by the GM. (Which is not to say that players may not do something else valuable in playing.)

BW invites the players to do (1), and then the GM does (2) in response to the players. Hence the "sacred and most holy role of the players" includes hooking the GM.

 

[Lanefan]

Generally, I like to present situations in such a way that the players, in playing their characters, have a reason to act. ... If a player's response to a situation that I frame is to have his/her PC do nothing, then I've clearly framed a dud scene. In practice, because these things are happening via back-and-forth, if I can see that the situation I'm narrating is not engaging the player(s) via their PC(s), I'll change focus or add something in to correct for the initial misfiring.

Who says they're not engaged? It's entirely possible the players (in character) are so engaged in watching whatever the scene is play itself out (and have realized that anything they do probably won't help) that their best in-character action is to simply do nothing and wait for further developments.

A not-that-great example: the advisor/Baron scene, after the advisor has been made to reveal himself as a traitor - in a book or movie the Baron at this point is almost certainly going to react, probably leading to some back-and-forth between the Baron and the (soon-to-be-ex-)advisor. And while the PCs might well find this very engaging and informative, their likely-best move during this part of the scene is to - along with the rest of the court - do nothing and see how the Baron-advisor argument turns out.

More generally, I don't see why the idea of most action declarations having a purpose behind them, connected to the stakes of the evolving ingame circumstances, is dull. Whereas, given that I find shopping for clothes in real life rather tedious, why would I want to spend my leisure time pretending to be shopping for clothes?

OK, let's try a different example: party is travelling through some known-to-be-dangerous wilderness to get from one town to the next. Maybe they've already scared off a marauding wolf or three and at some point diverted their course in order to avoid something big crashing through the trees. Party in theory have a reason to get where they're going but it doesn't matter whether they get there tomorrow or next month, so out of the blue someone says "Screw it, this forest is dangerous. Time someone cleaned it out. I'm going after whatever's banging those distant drums I hear - who's with me?" So the player has not only just introduced the drums into the fiction but is also trying to get the party to engage with them...and thus left-turn from whatever they were going to be doing in the next town. (and note these drums or whatever is behind them have absolutely no bearing on anything else; the player who introduced them knows this and is just looking to do some head-bashing before what she fears might be another tedious round of diplomacy in the next town)

My game has plenty of mystery without the additional mystery of "Do we have any reason to care about this?"

As for depth: in my personal experience I haven't found random encounters with owlbears to add all that much depth. I tend to find that the "depth" of the gameworld is a product of immersion in compelling ingame situations, rather than a product of the accumulation of random details.

The many details - some random - are the depth, without which immersion is either much more difficult or nigh impossible. And, as the game world is (or really ought to be) far bigger than these few PCs and their cares, it stretches believability beyond its breaking point if everything the PCs ever encounter just happens to mesh with exactly what they care about. "Do we have any reason to care about this" is a very valid question for characters to find themselves asking, sometimes followed by "Should we find a reason to care?" and-or "Should we care anyway?".

The last claim is not true. It makes a huge difference, as a player, if I'm trying to divine the content of the GM's notes or if I'm trying to play my character, engage the fiction, and find out what sort of stuff ensues.

But they're not.

Again, all I can do is reiterate: there is a huge difference between playing a game in which the goal is to discover (say) whether or not the GM has decided that the Dusk War is pending, and playing a game where your PCs are trying to show to the cosmos that the Dusk War is not pending, and you (as a player) are trying as hard to do that as your PCs are.

If you can tell the difference during the run of play then that's down to me as DM, as I'm doing it wrong.

If you-as-player can "play my character, engage the fiction, and find out what sort of stuff ensues" (your words, above) does anything else matter...such as the source of said ensuing stuff?

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

A novelist, screenwriter etc does (at least) two things in relation to the fiction:

(1) establishes the characters, including their "dramatic needs";

(2) writes scenes in which those characters are forced to make choices that are driven by, reveal further things about, and potentially change, those "dramatic needs".​

(3) establishes the setting in which this all takes place

(4) links it all together into a coherent and more or less structured story.​

In a RPG with a fairly traditional player/GM divide - and everyone in this thread is posting about those sorts of RPGs - these functions are not located in the same person. Roughly speaking, the players do (1) and the GM does (2).

And (3), and sometimes (4).

If the GM does (2) indepdently of the players - which is the default presentation of GMing in D&D (4e is a bit of an exception, but not a total one), and many other RPGs also, especially the ones [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] calls "mainstream" - then unless the players do (1) in response, there is no guarantee that (2) and (1) will actually mesh. But if the players do (1) in response, then the fiction is being driven by the GM. (Which is not to say that players may not do something else valuable in playing.)

BW invites the players to do (1), and then the GM does (2) in response to the players. Hence the "sacred and most holy role of the players" includes hooking the GM.

Which just comes right back to something I said many pages ago: are the PCs (and players) proactive or reactive.

You seem to want the PCs/players to default to proactive and the game world/DM always be reactive (or passive if the PCs do nothing), which seems like a very one-way street. Doesn't seem like a fit for either relatively passive or reactive players, or for chaotic types like me.

Traditional D&D looks for more of a mix - if the PCs/players proactively stick their necks out somehow, the game world/DM reacts then quickly shifts to proactive as it tries to beat their heads in, and the PC/players are in react mode until that bit is done. But if the PCs/players do nothing (are passive) the game world/DM will proactively bring the action to them either by baiting adventure hooks or attacking them in their inn rooms or whatever. Lots more give and take, and lots of room for different player types.

Lan-"proactively reacting to passivity"-efan