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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7074514" data-attributes="member: 42582">I didn't say that anything is bad GMing, nor did I say that anything is a "failed sandbox".I did say, and I reiterate in this post: a game in which the action is driven by GM behind-the-scenes manipulation of the fiction is not a player-driven one of the sort that I prefer. I think, in fact, that it self-evidenty is GM-driven.Whether this is good or bad GMing depends, as  [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] said, upon what a particular table is looking for in their RPGing. How it compares to "Fronts" in the PbtA sense I'll let  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] or  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] respond to - though my sense, resulting from play moreso than reading, is that there is a big difference between (i) a game in which the causation behind events is murky to the players, and a major goal of play is trying to unravel the GM's "metaplot" (I'm thinking of 2nd ed AD&D play experiences) and (ii) a game in which the rationale for what is happening in the shared fiction is clear (ie the GM is bringing pressure to bear upon the players via interposing obstacles to the PCs' pursuit of their goals) and the major goal as a player is not to work out what is going on but rather to choose which value to realise in circumstances where some sacrifices will have to be made, or costs borne (I'm thinking of DW play experiences).As to the claim about things being boring: I've run the Keep part of KotB multiple times: it's not boring. There are NPCs with interesting motivations (a cultist priest; a rivalry between two authority figures in the keep) and these provide a source of dynamism. The apparent implication that static until it reacts to the PCs as played by their players must entail static per se seems to me to be another indication of thiniking of the game primarily in terms of how the GM might drive it, rather than how the players might do so.(There is also an interesting contrast here with  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s post upthread about illusionism: Lanefan seemed to express the view that actual, real world stuff that the GM does but the plaeyrs don't know about isn't a thing of any signficance; and in your post, you seem to suggest that imaginary stuff that happens in the GM's  conception of the fiction but is not part of the play at the table nevertheless is significant to the players.)Yes, if the player had different Beliefs for his PC, then the range of sensible failure narrations would be different. I'm not sure what is meant to follow from that.As I said in the post you quoted, "If a GM frames a player into a situation that manifestly fails to speak to a PC's Beliefs, the the player can tell." So where do you think the illusion is? What you describe is just naked disregard of the game's governing principles.More generally, are you really trying to argue that a game can't be designed or played in a way that makes a difference to the amenability of illusionism on the part of the GM? What about dice-rolling procedures? - Gygax's DMG takes for granted that the GM will roll dice secretly from the players; the MHRP rulebook states "There are no secrets in the Bullpen!" and hence all dice are rolled in front of everyone.Or what about DW player-side moves, which state expressly what the player is entitled to on a success, and what the GM is entitlded to do on a failure?Or contrast the following cases: in BW, a player declares that his/her sorcerer casts a spell, the difficutly is set, the casting is resolved. Certain failure results can lead to the spell fizzling. In AD&D, on the other hand, a spell can fizzle if cast into an anti-magic zone, which the GM is allowed to keep secret until the player declares the casting, and even then the GM is not obliged to explain why the spell fizzled - the player is expected to work it out.These are all differences of procedure that create different sorts of scope for various GM approaches.On "framing", I had a lengthy post not too far upthread (<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?531049-Judgement-calls-vs-quot-railroading-quot/page29&p=7070858&viewfull=1#post7070858" target="_blank">here</a>).On consequences, as I replied to  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION], if the narrated consequences don't speak to the Beliefs of the PCs (which are authored by their players) that will be evident. The plaeyrs will no that the GM is not running the game as advertised. There's no illusion.But a map isn't a flowchart, is it? Even a recipe isn't a flowchart, in the sense that you might change the sequence of steps (eg often I don't turn the oven on at the start like the recipe says, because it doesn't take that long to heat up and I want to conserve power).Whereas an "event-based" flowchart isn't a map. It's a temporal sequence of events - a "plot", if you like.Appendix B of LotR is something like a story; an atlas isn't.</blockquote>

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