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Judgement calls vs "railroading"
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7118284" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>No. I haven't used the phrase "player agency" at all. I've talked about "player-drvein" RPGing and I've explained pretty clearly (I hope) and at pretty great length what I mean by that, with reference to actual play examples, the text from Burning Wheel, and <a href="https://isabout.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/the-pitfalls-of-narrative-technique-in-rpg-play/" target="_blank">Eero Tuovinen's account of the "standard narrativistic model"</a>.</p><p></p><p>Here is that latter one again:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . . . by introducing complications.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">The rest of the players each have their own characters to play. . . . they naturally allow the character’s interests to come through based on what they imagine of the character’s nature and background. Then they let the other players know in certain terms what the character thinks and wants.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">[O]nce the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory . . . the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character . . . The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end.</p><p></p><p>The player is responsible for building a PC with dramatic needs that hook the GM; the GM is responsible for "going where the action is", that is, framing scenes that force dramatic, thematically significant choices.</p><p></p><p>Player-side scene-reframing abilities (eg teleportation; diplomancy, and a similar sort of approach to adjudicating perceptions/searching; certain types of divination) are an obstacle to achieving this sort of play, because instead of engaging the situation they let the players squib.</p><p></p><p>I'm not saying that games with those sorts of abilities are unplayable. But they're going to tend to drift away from "story now" play, into something more like exploratory RPGing.</p><p></p><p>If by "game like this" you mean a "story now" game, then you can't start with a character who has no motivations or dramatic needs. There has to be something to hook the GM.</p><p></p><p>(Detailed background is not very important. Character motivation and connection into the gameworld - relatonships, affiliations/loyalties, etc - are what matter, as these drive the character, and thus give the GM something to latch on to.)</p><p></p><p>The systems I am GMing at the moment - 4e, BW, Cortex/MHRP - don't tend to produce a high degree of PC death. (Although others have different experiences of 4e.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7118284, member: 42582"] No. I haven't used the phrase "player agency" at all. I've talked about "player-drvein" RPGing and I've explained pretty clearly (I hope) and at pretty great length what I mean by that, with reference to actual play examples, the text from Burning Wheel, and [url=https://isabout.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/the-pitfalls-of-narrative-technique-in-rpg-play/]Eero Tuovinen's account of the "standard narrativistic model"[/url]. Here is that latter one again: [indent]One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . . . by introducing complications. The rest of the players each have their own characters to play. . . . they naturally allow the character’s interests to come through based on what they imagine of the character’s nature and background. Then they let the other players know in certain terms what the character thinks and wants. [O]nce the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory . . . the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character . . . The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end.[/indent] The player is responsible for building a PC with dramatic needs that hook the GM; the GM is responsible for "going where the action is", that is, framing scenes that force dramatic, thematically significant choices. Player-side scene-reframing abilities (eg teleportation; diplomancy, and a similar sort of approach to adjudicating perceptions/searching; certain types of divination) are an obstacle to achieving this sort of play, because instead of engaging the situation they let the players squib. I'm not saying that games with those sorts of abilities are unplayable. But they're going to tend to drift away from "story now" play, into something more like exploratory RPGing. If by "game like this" you mean a "story now" game, then you can't start with a character who has no motivations or dramatic needs. There has to be something to hook the GM. (Detailed background is not very important. Character motivation and connection into the gameworld - relatonships, affiliations/loyalties, etc - are what matter, as these drive the character, and thus give the GM something to latch on to.) The systems I am GMing at the moment - 4e, BW, Cortex/MHRP - don't tend to produce a high degree of PC death. (Although others have different experiences of 4e.) [/QUOTE]
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