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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7087839" data-attributes="member: 42582">This is not right, though. You are ignoring framing, and assuming that everything is the consequence of checks. But there can be no checks without framing - without fiction to engage. In the sort of RPGing that I prefer, it is the GM's job to provide that framing, that is, to establish the relevant fiction.For instance, in the OP game, and as I've already posted in this thread, the PCs spent 18 months eking out a living in the Abor-Alz, living in a ruined tower. During that time, they spoke with some elven mercants who were passing through the hills. (Mechanically, this encounter resulted from a successful Circles check by the player of the elven princess.)Speaking to the elves, the PCs learned that the Gynarch of Hardby had become engaged to marry the leader of the sorcerous cabal (in whose tower the events of the OP took place).Another example from that game: some time in the 14 years since the mage PC and his brother left the tower (as it was being sacked by orcs - those events occurred prior to the time period of play, authored by the player of that PC), the wastrel elf of the hills entered it and stole the nickel-silver mace.These are elemnet of the fiction that did not take shape around the PCs based on their decisions. They are independent of PC decisions.They are not independent of player decisions - the same player etablished the sorcerous cabal and the nickel-silver mace as elements of the fiction, in the course of authoring PC backstory (and PC mechanical elements, in the case of the cabal); and another player built an elven PC who has a Belief to [?i]always keep the elven ways[/i]. But that is not the same thing, because not every player decision is a PC decision.And the decision to locate the campaign around Hardby, which has a sorcerous Gynarch, was made by me as GM - it is good for a S&S Conan-esque feel, and (as the player of the mage PC realised straight away when I described the setting) it fits well with the existence of a sorcerous cabal.Again, this is not correct. To quote <a href="https://isabout.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/the-pitfalls-of-narrative-technique-in-rpg-play/" target="_blank">the same passage</a> from Eero Tuovinen,[The GM's] 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 . . . by introducing complications. . . . Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character . . . a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character.Keeping track of the backstory is integral to framing scenes that introduce complications and provoke choices. As a GM, I am almost always giving thought to elements of the fiction with which the PCs are not currently engaged: these (i) are constraints on permissible new fiction (because of the demands of coherence, both ingame causal consistency and gente/thematic consistency); and (ii) are the material from which scenes are framed, from which complications are drawn, which are explicitly or implicitly at stake when choices are made.After the events of the OP, the mage PC and wizard/assassin ended up in a prison cell together. After reaching a short-term reconciliation, the wizard/assassin tried to break them out of the cell by picking the lock. To get a bonus, the lockpicking was attemptd carefully - a technical notion in BW that grants a bonus die but, in the event of failure, permits the GM to introduce a serious time-based complication.The check failed, and we ended the session on that cliffhanger. I don't know yet what the serious time-based complication will be, but it will draw upon elements of the fiction other than just the immediate framing of the two characters and the lock.The player of the mage PC is also thinking of those other story elements - as we were packing up, he was conjecturing that the door would open right into the face of a dark naga, come to find out what happened to the mage's blood that it wanted for its sacrifice . . .Assassination of the king is no different, for present purposes, from the Gynarch becoming engaged to be married. It is simply not true to say that this would be introduced only as a result of PC action.And to say that it would be introduced only in response to player choice is also to put things too narrowly: the presence in the fiction of the leader of the cabal is a response to a player choice (about PC story and mechanical elements, which have subsequently been deployed in play) but that is not true of the Gynarch.If the GM is doing this in his/her own time, and simply making notes in a folder headed "Campaign Record", then - at that point - it is not even clear what it would mean to say that it is part of the shared fiction. Who is it shared with?If the fate of the king and/or the assassin actually emerges in the course of play - eg as some bit of background colour, to explain why the courtiers are wearing black; or as some bit of framing, as the assassin comes to the PCs seeking refuge - then, at the current level of description, we haven't got any basis for determining whether the game is GM-driven in my sense, or player-driven in my sense. It's not until you know why the GM is framing the scene in question, or why it matters that the courtiers are wearing black, and hence that we need some explanation for that in the background, that you can tell who is driving the game in my sense.Another possibility is that the fate of the king and/or the assassin doesn't emerge in the course of play, but rather is used by the GM as an element of secret backstory to adjudicate player action declarations: for instance, the PCs reach out to the court because they are concerned about something-or-other, but are rebuffed for no evident reason - at the table, the GM simply declares the attempt a failure without reference to the action resolution mechanics. The GM's reason for this - which (it being secret) the players don't know - is that the king was recently assassinated by someone from the same hometown as the PCs, and that has put all the people of that town under a cloud.Now we have the sort of situation [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] described above, where the players either choose for their PCs to abandon their attempt to reach out to the court, or else think of ways to try to learn why they were rebuffed, follow them up, try to remove the stain on the townsfolk, etc. That sort of thing is, to me, a hallmark of GM-driven RPGing. But it is not characterised simply by the GM determining what happens with the assassin and the king while the PCs are otherwise occupied. It is about the use of that secret backstory as a device to resolve action declarations without reference to the mechanical procedures.Well, I don't want to quibble over the definition of "many", but this thread has about a dozen active participants, and two of them have done just that: And I don't think that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] are atypical. For instance, I think nearly all adventures published since (say) the mid-1980s involve at least some elements of secret backstory that the GM is expected to use as the basis for establishing that certain action declarations fail.No. It could be an element of framing - or, rather, what could be an element of framing is something like "An army of orcs is bearing down upon you". Whether the fight is unwinnable or not is a matter of resolution, not mere stipulation.Are you able to explain this further, because at the moment I can't see it.Every adventure path I'm familiar with violates (ii) - the gameworld, in respect of geography, past and future history, etc is pre-authored independently of any concerns/interests of the players as manifested through creation and play of their PCs. They also generally violate (iii): eg they contain advice like "If the BBEG is killed, then a lieutenant takes over the reins and continues the plot", which is a disregard of success; and they often involve softballing failure, as well, in order to keep things moving. For instance, there will be redundancies built into the storyline to ensure that the players get the clues regardless of whether their action declarations succeed or fail. These can also lead to violations of (i), if the manipulation of the fiction used to manage the unfolding of the AP requires introducing material that, while technically consistent with the established fiction, is at odds with its spirit or seeming trajectory.My response to this would be - have you tried it? That is to say, have you actually run a game in which, as a GM, (i) your role is to frame the PCs (and thereby) the players into situations that (a) engage their expressed concerns/dramatic needs, and thereby (b) force choices, which (ii) are then resolved via the mechanics (without recourse to secret backstory) in such a way as to produce outcomes in the fiction that are then binding on all participants, and (iii) that - if failures - conform in their content to framing constraints (a) and (b)?This the template for player-driven play that I have quoted multiple times from <a href="https://isabout.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/the-pitfalls-of-narrative-technique-in-rpg-play/" target="_blank">Eero Tuovinen</a>, and that is set out in <a href="http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/98542/Burning-Wheel-Gold-Hub-and-Spokes" target="_blank">the BW rulebook</a> that I quoted not far upthread, and that I set out in the post that you replied to (and have requoted above).The question is asked genuinely, not rhetorically, but I am guessing that the answer is "no", because if the answer was "yes" then I honestly don't think you would say that "the most railroady of APs" can satisfy these constraints. I think that the answer is "no" also in [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION]'s case, because Ovinomancer keeps making assumptions about the dynamics of play that assume violation of those constraints: eg [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION], quite a way upthread, repeatedly insisted that the consequences of failure in the search of the ruined tower for the nickel-silver mace was overly harsh; and more recently assumed that, because the advisor to the baron had a backstory that had unfolded over multiple episodes of play (beginning as mere colour, and gradually emerging into framing) that it must be a case of "secret backstory" being used by the GM to force a particular outcome.Whereas, if one considered those episodes of play assuming the player-driven approach I am describing, one would make the opposite inferences. Thus, learning of the consequence for failure in relation to the mace, rather than saying "That's too harsh as a consequence for failing to find an ordinary mace", one might ask "What goal/aspiration/need had the player established for his PC that made the discovery of the mace such a high-stakes matter?"  And from the account of the advisor's backstory and previous appearances over the life of the campaign, one might ask, "What events happened in play such that a bit of colour about a yellow-robed skulker built up into a key element in what seems to have been a pinnacle social challenge of the campaign?"It's nothing to do with the GM running amok. In every episode of play and campaign I have referenced in this thread I've been the GM, and I'm not worried that I am going to run amok!It's about what I want to get out of RPGing. To borrow a slogan, I want to play to find out. That is inconsistent with deciding ahead of time what can and/or does happen. And I mean that in the expansive sense that darkbard has nicely explained:In that sort of game, the GM is finding out how the players get from A to Z; while the players have the double-puzzle of (1) finding out what Z is (some GMs, and some published adventures, make this inordinately hard), and then (2) working out a viable path from A to Z. This is not the sort of thing I enjoy in RPGing.</blockquote>

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