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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7105394" data-attributes="member: 42582">I have put these two quotes together because Lanefan's rhetorical question provides the answer to hawkeyefan's non-rhetorical one.It's important, in my post that was quoted by [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION], that I said "player", not "PC". That is, I am not talking just about the PC setting out to prove that the claim of fatherhood is false - which presumably is possible in any game - but the player setting out to make it the case in the shared fiction that the claim is false.In a "secret backstory" game, whether or not the NPC is the father is (presumably) known to the GM (if it's not, then there's no secret backstory!), and so the player's action declarations can't actually establish this bit of the fiction. All they can do is uncover it (which is what I have referred to upthread as "learning the contents of the GM's notes"). If the PC cast a Commune spell and asked "Who is my father?" or "Is the NPC my father?", the GM would provide the answer written in his/her notes.Upthread I've already posted examples of the PCs trying to solve mysteries, and how this works in a "story now" framework where there is no "secret backstory". Here's one such:Mystery: why did the PC's brother become possessed by a balrog? Clue - narrated by the GM as a consequence of a failed Scavenging check: the PC searches the ruined tower where he and his brother once lived and worked, hoping to find the nickel-silver mace he left behind 14 years ago when fleeing attacking orcs; but instead, he finds cursed black arrows in the ruins of what had been his brother's private workroom. Further clue - narrated by the GM as a consequence of a failed Aura Reading check: the PC reads the magical aura of the arrows, hoping to learn who made them - it was his brother!The clues point towards an answer to the mystery - the PC's brother was evil, and hence a fitting receptacle for balrog possession. They are narrated by the GM in accordance with <a href="https://isabout.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/the-pitfalls-of-narrative-technique-in-rpg-play/" target="_blank">the "challenging revelation" approach described by Eero Tuovinen</a>.The mechanics of the system are important here: every action declaration is resolved according to "say 'yes' or roll the dice". There is no automatic success comparable to classic D&D commune. So the aura reading is a check, which can result in failure, which enables me as GM to narrate another clue that points in the unhappy direction.Here's another example:Mystery: is the Dusk War upon us! Clue - introduced by GM as part of framing: the tarrasque has risen from out of the earth and is wreaking havoc - this is one of the prophesied signs of the Dusk War. Further clue - introduced by GM as part of framing (partly unprompted, partly in the course of discussion between the PCs and a NPC, partly in response to knowledge checks which were, in effect, requests for more framing detail): the tarrasque is surrounded by maruts who in ancient days made an agreement with the Raven Queen to ensure that no one would interfere with the tarrasque carrying out its rampage at a herald of the Dusk War. The PCs responded to this by having one of their number attack the tarrasque and single-handedly bloody it, while the other PCs explained to the maruts that they had made an error in their cosmological calculations: this could not be the tarrasque heralding the Dusk War, because the ease with which it was being defeated meant that it could not be the harbinger of the end times. It must be some lesser precursor to that prophesied event. (Mechanically, this was both successful combat actions and success in a skill challenge to persuade the maruts.)In a "secret backstory" game the PCs presumably could persuade the maruts, but whether or not the prophesied end of days was here or not would itself be something already known to the GM (if not, then there is no secret backstory).I am not talking about a world-threatening villain that the PCs might try and stop. I'm talking about a prophesied end-of-days - the Ragnarok or the Apocalypse.The answer to the question is the Dusk War upon us is, in the fiction, either yes or no: it's either the end times, or it's not. But at the table, in the real world, the answer is not known. The players, like their PCs, want the answer to be no. There are NPCs - including the Raven Queen, it seems - who want the answer to be yes. Of course, the PCs don't have the causal power in the fiction to establish the answer - it's a cosmological truth. But the players, at the table, have the causal power to shape the fiction. That is the difference from a "secret backstory" game, where the answer to the question is settled in the GM's notes. (Again, if there is no such answer then we're not talking about a "secret backstory" game.)First, a subsidiary point: the GM does not seek the player's agreement out of session. That would be making the mistake that <a href="https://isabout.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/the-pitfalls-of-narrative-technique-in-rpg-play/" target="_blank">Eero Tuovinen describes</a>, of getting the player to author his/her own challenge. It is the GM's job to narrate the murder, whether as framing or as a consequence of a failed check. (As [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and I were discussing not far upthread, which of these, if either, is appropriate narration is the sort of decision a "story now" GM has to make all the time; if the GM gets it wrong, then the situation will fall flat, or fail to provoke a choice on the part of the player.)Second, the main points.(A) In a "story now"/"narrativistic" game the GM is going where the action is, in accordance with dramatic need. The sister has some significance. The sister's murder has some significance (eg it opens up the town council to control by the PC's rivals). The PC has someone in mind as the suspect. In short, the scene will provoke some choice on the part of the player. That choice will involve action declarations, which will be successful (in which case things unfold the way the PC hoped) or will fail (in which case things unfold unhappily for the PC).Which leads to the other main point:(B) It's simply not correct that "you-as-DM are still supplying the answers". Look at the examples I've given in this post; or other examples from upthread, like whether or not there is a vessel in the room where the unconscious mage has been decapitated. If the player's action declaration for his/her PC succeeds, then it is the player, not the GM, who is shaping the fiction. The player's successful Perception check established the presence of a vessel in the room. The players' successful defeat of the tarrasque made it plausible that it was not, in fact, the Dusk War harbinger but only some lesser incarnation.Think about (A) and (B) in relation to the example [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] posted not far upthread, of the discovery of the brother's hat in the brothel. I don't know DitV's resolution system, but I can easily imagine how this might unfold in BW:The PC picks up the hat from the hook in the foyer and strides into the main parlour of the brothel. He draws his pistol, holds up the hat, and calls out "The owner of this here hat had better come out here now, or I'll come and find him!" At the table, the GM calls for a Command check, with (say) Conspicuous, Oratory and Intimidate folded in as augments. If the check succeeds, some NPC stranger stumbles sheepishly out of one of the bedrooms, and the scene now evolves into a social encounter as the PC tries to find out how the NPC came by the brother's hat. If the check fails, then the PC (and player) have not got what they want. So the GM narrates the brother coming out of a bedroom into the parlour, pulling up his britches as he comes. Now the situation has taken a very different turn . . .Because of (A), there is no fumbling around by the players or the GM wondering where to go to look for clues. The situation is charged with dramatic need. The player can declare actions. The GM can supply engaging framing.Because of (B), the GM as much as the players is playing to find out. The resolution of the mystery will not be determined by the GM. It's not the GM who supplies the answers. The answers are generated by the consequences of action declaration: if the player succeeds, the PC's intent is realised; if the player fails, the GM narrates some consequence adverse to the PC's intent.Note that, even on failure, the GM is not sole arbiter. It is the player who established the intent of the action declaration, and hence who establishes the parameters (adversity to or negation of that intent) that govern the GM's narration of consequences of failure.Would it make my job easier as a baker of cakes for my family to buy one at the shop? To me, that sounds like giving up on my job.As I've repeatedly posted, I don't want to play an RPG where the main goal of play is for the players to find out what I have written in my notes. And if my players want to find out what I think would make for a good mystery, well, they can read my novels! But as far as RPGing is concerned, I want to play to find out. For me, that's what RPGing is.Sorry, I hadn't realised that any of this had been taken to be in contention.Yes, the GM has ideas. Otherwise the GM couldn't frame scenes or narrate consequences. But I don't know what you mean by "steering things in this manner".Consider one of the examples I posted around six or so posts upthread, from one of the sessions I participated in over the weekend: my GM included elves in the situation, because he like elves. And no doubt he had some ideas about what might happen with the elves (just as a GM might have ideas about NPCs and their connections to PC parenthood).So, with whatever ideas he had in mind, the GM narrated the presence of the elf captain. I initiated the social exchange; and it seemed fairly clear to me that the GM had not expected me (in character as my PC) to try to persuade the elven captain to bring himself and his company to my PC's ancestral estate. The interaction of stat blocks, scripting (ie blind action declarations, which is how BW handles complex conflict resolution) and the dice dictated that the elf captain rebuffed my PC's invitation; but while the attempt failed utterly, as I posted upthread it nevertheless (i) got me some good advancement checks, (ii) let me have fun speaking my arguments as the rules require, and (iii) established more about my character and his relationship to the ingame situation. Following the interaction with the elf captain, I was the one who then chose that my PC and his companion would head off in a different direction from the elves without taking any lunch (which we had originally been planning to eat at the ruined homestead).So anyway, as I've said, I don't know what you have in mind when you refer to the GM "steering things" in an episode of play like this. If you simply mean that the GM determines some elements of the fiction as part of framing - eg the elf, who didn't want to come back to my ancestral estate but rather to return to Celene with a fallen comrade - then as I said I didn't realise that was in contention. But if you mean something more, I'm missing what that is.Well, as I've said upthread I don't know enough about your game to form any opinion on it.But I think the contrast between the sort of approach that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] is advocating for - in which the GM authors the backstory in advance, and the players' job includes finding that out in the course of play - and the sort of approach that I prefer, is a fairly clear one.For all I know, you run a game in which you frame scenes according to dramatic need, and establish the content of the fiction in the sort of fashion that I have described: the interaction of framing, action declarations and consequences. Ron Edwards discusses this in <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/15/" target="_blank">two</a> <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/narr_essay.html" target="_blank">essays</a>:Sh*t! I'm playing Narrativist In Simulationist play, morality cannot be imposed by the player or, except as the representative of the imagined world, by the GM. Theme is already part of the cosmos; it's not produced by metagame decisions. Morality, when it's involved, is "how it is" in the game-world, and even its shifts occur along defined, engine-driven parameters. The GM and players buy into this framework in order to play at all. . . . Therefore, when you-as-player get proactive about an emotional thematic issue, poof, you're out of Sim. Whereas enjoying the in-game system activity of a thematic issue is perfectly do-able in Sim, without that proactivity being necessary. . . . The Now refers to the people, during actual play, focusing their imagination to create those emotional moments of decision-making and action, and paying attention to one another as they do it. To do that, they relate to "the story" very much as authors do for novels, as playwrights do for plays, and screenwriters do for film at the creative moment or moments. Think of the Now as meaning, "in the moment," or "engaged in doing it," in terms of input and emotional feedback among one another. The Now also means "get to it," in which "it" refers to any Explorative element or combination of elements that increases the enjoyment of that issue I'm talking about. There cannot be any "the story" during Narrativist play, because to have such a thing (fixed plot or pre-agreed theme) is to remove the whole point: the creative moments of addressing the issue(s). . . . Jesse: I'm just still a little confused between Narrativism and Simulationism where the Situation has a lot of ethical/moral problems embedded in it and the GM uses no Force techniques to produce a specific outcome. I don't understand how Premise-expressing elements can be included and players not be considered addressing a Premise when they can't resolve the Situation without doing so. Me: There is no such Simulationism. You're confused between Narrativism and Narrativism, looking for a difference when there isn't any.It's very clear to me that Lanefan is running a game that, in Edwards' framework, would count as "simulationist" because "exploration of situation and setting". I think the same is true for [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION], but probably with a greater focus on setting and character rather than situation. But you, [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION], haven't said enough about how you run your game, or provided examples of play that would illustrate your techniques. So I can't tell.</blockquote>

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