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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 7088237" data-attributes="member: 6785785">I'm not trying to ignore anything. My sense of Framing is that this is where the GM places the PCs at the start of a game or session, correct? And the GM draws upon the established fiction of the game world, correct? But the GM does not have any secret backstory to draw from....so he is drawing everything from what has been established by the players' actions, right? Let me ask you flat out, because there seem to be contradictory elements in your descriptions and it's certainly possible I have missed something, but does the GM ever create elements of the game entirely on his own? If you've already answered this elsewhere, then my apologies, please do me the courtesy of repeating yourself rather than referring to a post upthread. So the GM can simply decide that an assassin is out to kill the king? Can he also establish who the assassin works for and why that person wants the king dead? Well there are two ways this could factor in. The first would be the GM deciding, when the PCs don't pursue the assassin, "okay, here's what happens as a result....I'll make a note of it in case it matters later on". The second would be the Gm deciding later on when it does in fact come into play what had happened with the king and the assassin. But why would the GM have the PCs' attempt to reach the court rebuffed without explaining why? You seem to attribute some need for secrecy here on the part of the GM, but I cannot see why. Perhaps such an attempt is rebuffed, but the PCs find out it's because the king was killed....and they then recall that time when they had learned that an assassin may have been after the king, but they did nothing.....Here are the three elements as you originally presented them: (i) having regard to consistency with the fiction already established in the course of play (ii) having regard to the concerns/interests of the players as manifested through their creation and their play of their PCs (iii) bound by the outcomes of action resolutionI decide I am going to run the Tyranny of Dragons Adventure Path. I discuss this with my players. Each of them creates a Forgotten Realms character for the game. Each of them creates ties to the Sword Coast region. For additional investment, I look at the ideas they come up with, and I take elements from the Adventure Path, and tie them to the characters. Then we play the game and I let things play out as they would based on the performance of the PCs. It seems that this game fits all the criteria you've cited. This is why I don't agree with your assessment that these elements are closely tied to a "Player Driven" technique so much as they are just sound ways to GM a game. Have I done solely that? No. Have I done exactly that at times? Yes. As I said earlier in the thread, there is no reason that a GM's desires for the game cannot be in harmony with that of the players. So the presence of a "secret backstory" or metaplot does not mean that it has to be used as a cudgel to thwart PC choice and force the game in a specific direction. Sure, but that slogan in this case has a very specific definition. And I don't agree with that definition. Looking just at the words "Play to find out" and thinking of them not as a slogan with a specific meaning, but rather just as a description, I absolutely play to find out. First off, granting XP does not have to mean "I agree fully with this statement in all ways!"Second, I don't think that [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION]'s use of the Forgotten Realms as an example of how fictional elements can indirectly affect play is the same as your "secret backstory" point. There's no reason such information must be secret. I don't know that the methods are all that new. I think games designed with mechanics in mind to enforce those methods are what's new. And whether such mechanics or methods would make a game better or not is subjective. For people to decide if such methods would help their game or hurt it, it would also help to be able to discuss the drawbacks of those methods or mechanics, right?</blockquote>

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