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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 7101106" data-attributes="member: 6778044">Since you kept referring to Eero Tuovinen's Standard Narrativistic Model, that's what I searched. His article was not talking about railroading. I'll certainly be happy to read the Forge article. I agree 100%. I don't see how you read this into that statement though. When referring to shared-authoring, I'm specifically talking about the types that Eero was talking about in his article - backstory and setting, and more specifically that sort of shared authoring during the game. His examples also specifically imply that there is secret backstory that has great value (the villain is your father, the whole thing is a hoax, etc.). And the GM (that secret backstory/setting stuff again). But he also specifically advocates for secret backstory/setting, even if he's not calling it that. Well, to begin with, his premise to me seems to be that shared-authoring of backstory and setting in general should stop when the game commences. Since I hadn't read any of the Forge stuff, his model seems to very concisely address all of his earlier commentary on shared authoring during the game, which he spent quite a bit of the page discussing, and covered several different types of it as well. So to me, based on all the evidence I had, was that was why the model was written, and that he had in fact written it since you were calling it the Eero Tuovinen Standard Narrativistic Model. And as far as I can tell, that's what I said, and what I agree with 100%. OK, this is different. And while perhaps in this model this is true, it's not required. It's entirely possible for them to be playing with pregenerated characters and still use this model. Just as improvisational theater can start with predefined characters. So while the PC has clear dramatic needs, the player doesn't have to be the one to establish them. Again, the player doesn't have to establish or author all or any of the concrete characters, situations, and backstory. I've already stated I disagree with his implication that the GM must "go to where the action is" and always a "process [of] choices lead[ing] to consequences which lead to further choices" etc. One way you can determine whether the attempt succeeds is that they make a skill check of whatever nature. Even if it is in fact the basis of secret backstory (that there is no secret door there), then it also naturally leads to further choices. That is, anything else other than finding a secret door there. Why should I provide alternative choices for them? Why should I limit their choices from literally almost anything to the 1, 2 or 3 options I toss at them? If they are searching for Smaug's lair, and I've described the terrain, they have their map and their text, I've told them about the bird, and they fail to put the pieces together, why should I provide another way for them to get in? Perhaps, just perhaps, these aren't the fabled heroes to save the day. Maybe they have to find another way in. Maybe the real story isn't that they need a secret door to enter the lair of the dragon, it was only what was needed to set their path in that direction. To inspire the dwarves to reclaim their lost homeland, no matter the obstacles. How do we find out? By seeing what the characters do after they fail to find the secret door. For me to provide my solutions robs the players of the opportunity to find theirs. Here is the quote once again: "The fun in these games from the player’s viewpoint comes from the fact that he can create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character; this is the holy grail of rpg design." There is nothing whatsoever that says the players must establish the dramatic needs. Nor that the DM has to provide dramatic needs. It only says that "he can create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character." That's it. He makes decisions as his character. In fact, it doesn't even require a GM at it's core. The "holy grail" as defined in this sentence (and one I agree with) is that the players can essentially experience being that character. If it's through a computer game, some sort of complex randomized system, or with a GM in a defined game. The rest of his (or whoever wrote it originally) model is an opinion/model of how he or others think is a good way to achieve this holy grail. I have not missed or ignored the "fact" that they players establish that, because it is not a requirement. It might be a requirement in the games you play, but for the players to make "nothing but choices made in playing his character" all they need to know is who the character is. If they are playing a Star Wars game, and they are Luke Skywalker, then they will be making choices as Luke Skywalker. Luke's character, his motivations, his backstory have all been authored by somebody else. But the player can still "create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character." I like this metaphor, but disagree with the "puts those needs and that theme to the test." There are more than two choices. The third is that the scenes are just that, scenes. Or to put it a different way, scenery. I'm Luke Skywalker. I'm going to save my Dad. I want my friends to be safe. I'm on some stupid forest moon, and want to get from here to there. DM: You spot several stormtroopers ahead, with speeder bikes. Not putting any need or theme to the test yet. Luke: Have they spotted us? DM: Doesn't look like it. Luke: Great, no need to cause any trouble, we'll go back a mile, and circle about two miles to the east and hopefully not find any more. Not a lot of dramatic framing going on. Nothing that's really putting those needs or theme to the test. Nor are they framing the scene themselves. He's just making a decision based on what is present in front of him. Whether it's fun or not is subjective. But it does create story. [GM] Yes, how the scene resolves is not up to the GM. But how the scene ends is. My discussion on framing doesn't really have to do with Eero's definition one way or the other. My examples were to show that how you frame the scene - where the scene starts, and also where it ends, along with what information you choose to include and how, has an impact on the story. And that anytime you (as a GM) skip from one scene to another, especially if you are trying to interpret where the story is going, you run the risk of taking the story away from the players. If for no other reason, than the players don't get to decide anything about what they do in the intervening time. And I never said there was. I said that the DM can have an impact on the story on deciding where the scene ends. In my example, the situation was resolved - the players escaped the slavers and escaped the caverns. But by framing the next scene with the whole group ready to hunt down the slavers, I made a whole bunch of assumptions - starting with the one that the players would stick together. Yes. The dramatic need of the first scene was to: 1) Escape the slavers 2) Survive 3) Find a way out of the caverns The dramatic purpose, as defined by the DM was: 1) To provide a reason for the players to be together (shipwreck) 2) To provide a reason to stay together (survive - escape too, although one of them could have used another as bait or barter so that might have backfired). However, depending on the DM and what he reads into the play of the first scene, along with whatever prewritten, prethought, or improvised thought, the second scene was framed with the intention to keep the players together and to hunt down the slavers. It might have been directly taken from the PCs actually commentary about how "they'll stop the slavers" and similar. But had the scene been allowed to continue beyond the cave, things might have gone in a very different direction. And I wouldn't invoke the game's rules at all when describing that scenario. They were just captured. Unless your rules specifically say that "when a character is reduced to 0 hit points they go to jail (and directly to jail)." But, I'd also be interested in knowing how you were describing the combat. Because in my campaign knocking somebody unconscious happens when you're trying to knock somebody unconscious. If you're reduced to 0 hp you are stunned (in shock), and lose consciousness only after you fail your first death save. And at that point you're dying. If the goblins were attacking to capture, that would have been relatively obvious since they wouldn't have been stabbing them with swords. I hate the rules that say you can decide on the final blow that you just knock them unconscious instead of killing them. You have to make that decision before you stab them with your sword. That makes sense as "determined by the game's rues" and while I understand the rules, since part of many superhero games is specifically to emulate the storyboard style of comics (or at least the way people play them), it's not a rule I'd like or use. I agree that people may get what they don't want. And while the rules determine that (if for no other reason than the DM gets to describe what happens), I prefer for the action in the game to be dictated by the fiction, that is I don't like rules such as "spend from the Doom Pool to end the scene" or player action dice that allows them to write the scene. I prefer the game to be led by the fiction and supported by the rules. Well, that's really the crux of it to me. First, not every scene, as far as I'm concerned, needs to be dramatic. The owlbear scene was just a scene. They were claiming an inheritance, an unfinished, partially damaged castle. The owlbear had chosen to nest there. I wasn't expecting it to provide some sort of great character development, it just did. It also happened to be the home of a werebear (who to this day they still think is a druid) whom they befriended, a result that happened largely because of the owlbear encounter. What I love to watch is how the story progresses solely by the actions and decisions of the characters. Normal, every day characters. A farmer kid that's out playing "ranger" with his buddies and stumbles across an ancient Netherese tomb. They've all been trained in basic martial skills to help defend the village, and they (probably naively) don't entirely understand all the risks. It's just an old tomb. So they explore. That's it. See where it leads. Not some big dramatic story arc, and particularly not one where I have to keep coming up with moments each time the dice tell me to according to dramatic needs or provoke thematic moments, or their character's needs or motivations. Sometimes things will. But much of life is just...life. Yet each little decision you make along the way has an impact on your future and who you are. I found Eero's (or whoever's) analysis very interesting. Although I disagree with (and pointed out where and why) that it had to be that way to accomplish the same goal. Certainly there are games that are designed around that model quite closely. But I still feel (and know, from my own experiences), that to have an amazing story you don't have to have all of the elements he prescribes. Bits and pieces undoubtedly exist in how I run games. But I've had players have amazing experiences playing a pregenerated character, and even those that have taken over other player's characters when those players left the game (and they played them very true to those original characters). The reason I distinguish framing from framing is because it's a term that is used frequently, and even though there is a definition that is used by folks "in the know" for the rest of us it has quite different meanings. My objection, no not really objection, just point is that tight framing and certain other framing techniques can be used to go as far as railroading the game. When playing with groups that want an epic story, and an epic feel, I use tighter framing and drive the story quite a bit at times. That's the kind of game they wanted. But most of the time I provide much (most) of the backstory and setting, and they provide the majority of the story. I provide a teeny amount, through the actions of the NPCs and such. Perhaps it's because I'm not a great story-teller. I can come up with schemes, plots, tie together a world full of events. But an interesting plot, with characters and in particular dialogue. Not a chance.[/gm] </blockquote>

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