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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7104445" data-attributes="member: 42582">No. It's not part of any backstory until the moment of revelation.As I posted upthread in reply to   [MENTION=61721]Hawke[/MENTION]yfan,A GM making a note - "If the appropriate situation arises, X claims to by Y's rather" - is not establishing any backstory, secret or otherwise. It's just brainstorming.You are also disregarding what Eero Tuovinen says about the GM narrating the revelation:The correct heuristic is to throw out the claim of fatherhood if it seems like a challenging revelation for the characterIn other words, all that the GM's narration establishes is that this NPC claims to be the PC's father. Nothing is established, in virtue of that, about who the PC's father is.The only thing that is established as true in the fiction is that the claim has been made. Which the player knows.I've given examples, in this very thread, of events similar to what Eero Tuovinen describes:The discovery that the mage PC's brother enchanted cursed black arrows before being possessed by a balrog, which suggests that his evil caused his possession rather than that his possession caused his evil. This was a "challenging revelation" narrated as a consequence of failure. The revelation that the two brothers don't have the same father - that the possessed brother is the son of Bernard the Holy. This was a slightly less "challenging revelation" narrated as part of framing. The fact that it is less challenging was relevant to my decision to narrate it as part of framing rather than as a consequence of failure.This sort of GMing is completely different from (say) a standard mystery adventure module, where the answers are all written in the module, and the GM will adjudicate action declarations by reference to those answers.If one thinks of the father example, for instance, one can imagine the player setting out to establish it as true that the claim is false. That would not be possible in a "secret backstory"-driven game; but is eminently feasible in a "story now" game.Another example that I posted upthread - also in reply to   [MENTION=61721]Hawke[/MENTION]yfan - exmplifies the same features:The claim that the Dusk War is upon upon us! is the challenging revelation. The PCs deny it. Play will show whether or not they are right. This game literally could not be played if I as GM had already decided whether or not the Dusk War has come. That would turn the game from a struggle over the fate of the world into a mystery or puzzle-solving game - an instance of what you quote Ron Edwards describing as "exploration of situation".I don't want to play a game in which the players explore the situation. I want to play a game in which they drive the situation. This is utterly at odds with the truth and the outcome of the situation already being established in the form of "secret backstory".EDIT: This also seemed relevant:I take it that, implicitly, there is a third option: leave (c) on the table and play to find out?EDIT THE SECOND: I've read on, so I think the answer is - yes, there is a third option, but   [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] seems not be to be very keen on it.Needless to say, as per my post just above this, I think that the presence of that third option is crucial to GMing this sort of game, and that is why "secret backstory" is, on the whole, inimical - because it answers the question before it is even asked in play!</blockquote>

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