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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7054585" data-attributes="member: 42582">In my OP I referred to outcomes:Later on (post 37), I elaborated: "Is an utterly random or unmotivated choice an outcome? I tend to agree with [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION] that it's not. It follows that "We go left" or "We go right", in a context where - from the players' perspective - there is nothing at stake in the choice is not an event of action declaration, any more than "My boots are frilly" is an action declaration. It's just colour and performance.In the post I've just quoted, you (Imaculata) talk more generally about events. Not every event is an outcome.For instance, in the Cortex Fantasy game I ran on the weekend, and that I've already mentioned a couple of times in this thread, after the group had established the rationale for the four PCs heading off together on a quest, I narrated along the lines of "You travel north, up into the foothills. You can see snow-capped mountains in the distance. As you crest a ridge, you see a valley below you, and on the other side of it a large steading." One of the players asked "Is there smoke or similar signs of life coming from the steading?" and I replied (with no dice rolling) "Yes, there's smoke."Here are some of the events that occur in what I've just described: travelling north, seeing mountains, cresting a ridge, seeing a steading, smoke coming from the steading, seeing the smoke coming from the steading.But none of them is an outcome of play. No player declared any action. Nothing was being resolved. It's all just framing - establishing the immediate context of the shared fiction in which the action of the game is going to unfold.The first actual action of the game, after the initial setting up, was when one of the players declared "I go to the gate of the setting, knock, and call out a greeting." I narrated an outcome without any dice being rolled - a deep voice (correctly presumed by the players to be the voice of a giant) responded gruffly. That is not railroading (as characterised by me in my OP), because it is not a case of me shaping an outcome to fit a preconceived narrative. It is simply "saying 'yes'" to the player - the player wants his PC to open negotiations, and I am letting that happen.The negotiations themselves then unfolded, and were resolved via a check (or perhaps a series of checks - I don't recall the details now) - the upshot being that the player successfully established that he was invited to enter the steading, and hence the gates were opened.Relating this to the Marquis example: the question of whether assassination of the Marquis is mere framing or whether that is an outcome is heavily dependent on the context of play, the relationship of the PCs to the Marquis, the attitude of the players to the Marquis and to the PCs' relationship(s) with the Marquis, etc. These are some of the things that [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] was getting at upthread.One can't tell which sort of thing it is simply by describing the events in in-fiction terms. One can't tell which sort of thing it is simply by noting that the GM narrates it (ie it is "scripted") without regard to player action declarations for their PCs. My description of the viking PCs cresting the ridge was "scripted" - not in the literal sense (I made it up on the spot), but in the sense that it was GM narration in "boxed text" mode. But it was not railroading, because it wasn't an outcome.The only outcome in the neighbourhood - ie that the PCs are viking-types on a quest to find out what is happening with the northern lights, the spirit world, and the Dragon's Curse - had already been established in the initial discussion around setup, where the players voted for vikings over Japan and came up with the reasons their PCs have to go on a mission.I regard distinguishing between what is mere framing, and what is an outcome, as a very important domain of GM judgement. If you get it wrong, in either direction, then play will suffer.For instance, suppose that - following the initial set up of the Cortex viking game - I ask the players, "So, what do you do?" rather than frame them into their trek to the north where they crest a ridge and see a steading, what is going to happen? The players will be confused - what was the point of all that set-up if we're not now going to cut to the action? I send mixed signals - I suggest that there is potentially something else of significance in the neighbourhood of their PCs that has no connection to the stuff we just spent 10 or 15 minutes working through. Why would I want to do that?Conversely, if I treat not only the trek and the cresting of the valley as framing, but go further and tell them "So you enter the steading, and the action opens with you discussing matters at a feast with the giant chieftain", then there is the danger that I have mistaken an outcome for framing. For instance, one of the PCs in the game is a sneaky type who can influence animals and change into a wolf. By framing that PC into open negotiations with the giant, and prevent the player from expressing those aspects of his PC in the way that he actually did - namely, by sneaking into the Steading, finding a giant ox in the barn, and then trying to trade that ox for a favour from the giants (relying on the fact that giants are notoriously stupid and so won't recognise their own ox).That's not to say that the boundary between what is framing and what is outcome is always clear-cut. There may be a zone of reasonable choices by the GM, and those judgement calls - in conjunction with the players' own concerns, motivations etc which are both elicited and responded to by the GM's framing - will influence what events unfold in the game.</blockquote>

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