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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7088334" data-attributes="member: 42582">I presented an exampe of secret backstory being used to settle the outcome of an action declaration. That happens in RPGing. And as the responses in this thread have shown, it's not even particularly controversial.What you describe is not an example of secret backstory being used to settle the outcome of an action declaration. It's an example of framing a challenge. But I don't think it's what [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] had in mind.Ilbranteloth said "the intention is not to write or have material available that never comes into play. It's to have such material available in case it might come into play." In your example, who cares about haggling with merchants and smugglers? The player - in which case, it's an example of the GM "going where the action is". If that's how you run your game, then presumably it's not wildly different from how I run mine. But, again, I don't think that's what [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] meant, because when I said that I would be GMing blind without knowledge of what is motivating the players in their action declarations for their PCs (which is what one needs to know to "go where the action is"), Ilbranteloth didn't indixcate the same need.If it's the GM deciding that it would be fun to have an episode of haggling with merchants and smugglers, then it's an example of what I would call GM-driven play (because, in introducing the fiction by way of framing, the GM is not having regard to the concerns/interests of the players as expressed through the build and play of their PCs).A few things in response.(1) The Forge's slogan for the sort of play that I have called "player-driven", that Eero Tuovinen calls "the standard narrativistic model", and that is set out in the introductory pages of BW that I quoted upthread, is story now.Ie it is not about "a good, well integrated story" in the future. It is about story now. Hence the injunction to the GM to "go where the action is". Hence the need, in each framing and each narration of a failed check, to have regard to the dramatic needs of the PC as established by the player through build and play.Without having a full-fledged theory of dramatic composition, I think it's likely that a series of episode of story now, taken as a whole, will also probably exhibit "a good, well-integrated story". But that's a secondary concern.(2) Suppose the wastrel elf never figured again, because his dramatic work - testing the reaction of the elven ronin sworn always to keep the elven ways - had been done. How would that be inconsistent with anything? Or even atypical - all episodic fiction has it's one-off characters who figure prominently at some point but then fade into the background thereafter.The good naga who helped the PCs in the Bright Desert may never figure in the game again. It was still fun at the time. And sowed the seeds for the dark naga, which has appeared in only one session but - due to its influence over the shaman PC - continues to be a significant presence in the the fiction of the game.(3) Why would participants in a GM-driven game keep better notes, and have better memories, than participants in the sort of game that I run? Given that, as I posted, one constraint on authorship is consistency with the established fiction, why would you assume that I discard it rather than retain it? You assert that it is "overwritten", but have no actual evidence for that.(And what I said that I don't have to look up from 4 years ago is character goals. Because those infuse every moment of play. I mean, you know I have notes from 6 years ago that I can look up if I need to, because I posted about that in a reply to you.)And now you're just making stuff up. The "realilty" you describe here has no life outside your own imagination.If you want to see how my game actually works, follow some of the links that I've provided in this thread.</blockquote>

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