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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7114939" data-attributes="member: 42582">If the "bigger GM-generated story" is all about the stuff that I chose to matter for my PC and that has been unfolding resulting from my action declarations - then that's just the "standard narrativistic model" - the GM has been framing scenes by "going where the action is", and the result is the continuous unfolding of those events.If the "bigger GM-generated story" is something the GM planned in advance, then how has this been done while each individual scene is framed such that it mattered to my character. How did the GM know what would matter to my character as the campaign unfolded, and what choices I would make?From my point of view, the scenario you describe at the end could play out in so many different ways, and all those different ways involve nuance.Just to give an illustration of what I mean: at a certain point in the OP game I introduced the dark naga, because (i) one player had established, as a Belief for his shaman/spirit-binding PC, something about visions of a dark force rising in the land, and (ii) another player had brought a snake-handling shaman into play, and (iii) earlier in the campaign the PCs had had a rewarding encounter with a friendly naga guarding a desert oasis.This is a little bit like your example, in that I'm dropping something in which is my conception of what might be interesting in the context of the campaign and the players' signalled preferences. But it's hard to know, until one tries it, whether or not it will get uptake or just be a small blip which ends up going nowhere (eg the snake-handler isn't that interested in magical spirit snakes; the player who wrote the belief about a dark force had something quite different in mind). As it happens the naga did generate uptake, and so has been solidified as an element in the campaign (although its deeper in-fiction ramifications and historical and mystical significance are still all unknowns).If the uptake had been weaker, and I kept going with it, I think the players could easily tell that I was pushing something I was keen on. (Maybe my GM will do that with his mumakils!) Is that good or bad? It depends so much on what form the pushing takes, whether or not the integrity of action declaration and resolution is respected, etc. Eg if the players have their PCs kill the dark naga, that's a pretty clear thing, and ignoring or subverting that would be bad GMing - but also pretty evident. But if the players put up with the GM's soft spot for nagas or mumakils or evil imperial overlords, that just looks to me like give-and-take at the table. But also not involving any covert applications of force.In the scenario you describe, the crunch point might be when the GM wants to centre the evil overlord via the parenthood claim, while the player experiences that as the GM trying to make his/her enthusiasm - which the players have been going along with in a reasonable way - into the front and centre of the campaign as that player is engaged with it. It seems to me that that could be a good way to wreck a game! - in the same sort of neighbourhood (though slightly different details) as Luke Crane's examples of killing off the person the PC is sworn to protect in the first session, or bringing the wife back to life without the player getting to experience that as the final conclusion of the character's quest.Which goes back to what I posted upthread - I think these sorts of misjudgements, about what will or won't work in terms of framing and consequences, are the real "pressure points" for "story now" GMing. Not illusionism, because the player can tell what the GM is doing by watching the GM do it ("There's that Darth Vader/mumakil/dark naga again!"), but making the wrong call about "where the action is".</blockquote>

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