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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 7106308" data-attributes="member: 6696971">So  @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=42582" target="_blank">pemerton</a> already analyzed this and I'm in agreement with what he wrote.  But I'll throw a few words of my own into the ring.While I understand that "provoke the players into action" and "drive play toward conflict" can easily be perceived as "specific direction to drive the story arc", within context of everything else (the rest of the GMing principles, the general play procedures, the specific conflict resolution procedures, the game's Reward Cycle) it really isn't about story specificity.  Its about addressing premise.  The conceptual difference between the two may be nuanced, but it is absolutely central to proper Story Now GMing.To play at all in these games is to accept either (a) the tight system premise that is inherent to the game itself (like My Life With Master) or (b) premise that is inherent to (and signaled by) the thematic choices of PC build (D&D 4e, Dungeon World, and the Cortex+ games) or (c) both (Dogs, Burning Wheel, Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark).So all the GM is doing in Dogs is their job; (1) create obstacles (Towns) which provoke (hook into premise and demand a response) and (2) functionally and coherently frame conflicts around Dog's inherent premise (and each of the Dogs' inherent premise themselves), (3) escalating them when necessary and sensible (which is most of the time), and (4) respond to the evolving conditions/evolved continuity by framing follow-on conflicts that hook right back into premise until every PC is done for (physically, mentally, or emotionally) or the Town is cleansed.  (5) Take a breather as we reflect between towns, the players and the situation evolves, then go right back to (1).Story specificity isn't a thing in Dogs or Story Now games.  Whatever happens...happens.  Just address premise and provoke with relevant content.  Then react to the players and appreciate the fireworks and fallout.I know there is this sandbox mental framework impulse that tells a certain segment of longtime AD&D players that serial exploration of setting (with objective temporal and spatial relationships and granular accounting for both) and a broad/varied buffet of premise is fundamentally the only boundary conditions which can maximize player agency.  For them, hard scene framing and "go to the action" (contrast with serial exploration of setting relationships) and focused premise (contrast with a broad/varied buffet of premise) is fundamentally a problem for player agency.  But its just not for these type of games.  In fact, smuggling in those sandbox GMing principles (holistically...some Story Now games use certain components) is actually damaging to the player agency (and aesthetic experience) of Story Now games. This is because spending precious play time exploring/investigating premise-neutral setting relationships or spending table time on dramatically-inert situations (either because they are fundamentally so or because the GM has done a poor job of framing) are both negatively impactful to the sum-total amount of agency that players could be expressing around addressing premise/theme in a given session and, just as important, such inconsistent pacing negatively impacts the very precious momentum/tempo that is central to the play experience.  For the players to play at all in a Story Now game and for the game to work at all is to embrace (and expect) that paradigm.</blockquote>

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