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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7101085" data-attributes="member: 996">Don't know about BW, but the references to AD&D sound familiar.   The classic adjudication of the AD&D 1e Wish was to closely parse and twist the exact phrasing. I couldn't easily agree more.  I'm personally dead set against such 'player as resolution system' mechanics.  Horrid stuff, limiting for no good reason.  Well, not for no reason, the idea is often to 'encourage RP' (conflating roleplaying with speaking in character).  It's a frustrated thespian (another slanted label I like to toss out) thing. "If you don't want to be seen as stupid or bigoted, you must agree with me?"     If you feel the need to preface a diatribe against something with an assurance that's it's not, it probably is.  IDK if you really meant to do either of those things but I started reading your post, and it immediately made me very suspicious.  But, I'm cynical, I project that sort of thing a lot.  ;( So, 'Story Now,' and 'Illusionism' are both terms hatched in the catty environment of the Forge, among it's many convenient labels and theories that grew out of deeper and deeper examination of the false Role vs Roll dichotomy that consumed so much bandwidth in the 90s.  Personally, I find the vast majority of usages of Forge terminology to be for nothing more nor less than denigrating a game or style other people like, or building up one that you like, even though it has little to recommend it.  That's my biased perception of the Forge, there, out in the open.  That said, the definitions of 'Story Now' and 'Illusionism' make the two pretty fundamentally incompatible.  Illusionism is the probably-intended-to-be-pejorative label applied to a legitimate GMing technique, in which you move the story/campaign/action/whatever in a desirable (to you, the GM, it's very specific, that way) direction, in spite of the players taking actions that'd screw it up, /without tipping off the players that you're doing so/.  If you're not good at illusionism or don't even try, it's just "GM Force," which is the same thing, except the players get to grumble about it.As best as I understand it, in 'Story Now' the GM isn't meant to have any such agendas to 'Force,' so, by definition, doesn't have the opportunity to engage in illusionism.  Convenient, that.  I could see making a case that games that wrap themselves in the 'Story Now' label don't really meat the definition, or that the Forgite term is pernicious nonsense in the first place, but if you're going to stick with their definitions, you can't make the case that 'Story Now' is based on Illusionism, because, by those definitions, the two are antithetical. points to specific instances, and works well, Story Now games act Like in the Incredibles, yeah, that's a point the insane villain makes.  ;P   The difference I see, though, is that it's about leveling, making everyone the same, when the Story Now concept doesn't go there, it doesn't making every one or every thing the same, it focuses on specific things, just things chosen by the players, rather than things chosen by the DM (which if the DM /makes/ the game focus on them, in spite of player decisions, is Forgite 'DM Force,' and if he successfully hides that he's doing so, 'Illusionism'). Sure, because otherwise it wouldn't be worth engaging.  In, I guess, the 'Story Never' style, you investigate the skulker, find out he has nothing to do even tangentially with anything you're concerned with, shrug, and never get that game time back. Then, you proceed to go searching for things that don't exist and uncovering things you don't care about.   Not the definition of illusionism.  Arguably an 'illusion,' in the same sense that any game of imagination may be, but not the specific Forgite slanted label in question.There's certainly something more demanding about it.  But if you're not good at extemporizing 'good' (in the GM's judgement, I assume) prayers, you're not going to be able to play the character effectively, right?  That doesn't sound like a great mechanic, as a mechanic, even if the way it encourages speaking in character is desirable for reasons of other preferences.... Because it closes off player options.  You can't play a character too different from yourself.  Because it's essentially imbalanced (it favors players who have the talents the resolution system requires), and even innately unfair (because evaluating the player's performance generally rests entirely on the GM, inviting bias). If it means you can't play a tactically adept PC because of that, yes.  If, OTOH, the system has ways of modeling such abilities without requiring the player providing it, not so much.   It's a strike against them, especially if the rewards for that form of system mastery are excessive. It makes playing a hand of poker a horrible resolution system for an RPG.Sure.  Functionality, clarity, playability, balance, basic fairness - lacking enough of those can make a mechanic horrible.  Player-as-resolution-system mechanics can easily lack every positive quality a mechanic should have. Can't say I haven't seen it before.  Maybe not as much as appeals to popularity, a favored defense against all sorts of criticisms, especially when defending D&D, which is, afterall, the #1 RPG.  And, of course, appeals to un-popularity like 'such-and-such is a horrible mechanic because lots of people wouldn't like it.'</blockquote>

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