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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 5570885" data-attributes="member: 18280">Have you ever gone to a movie, where something simply didn't seem to make sense?  Have you ever evaluated the performances of actors?  Have you ever read a book and decided that you didn't believe a character would actually do something?  Have you ever noticed that something in a movie was actually an ad, rather than arising from the fiction?  Have you ever noticed the manipulative hand of the author in a novel, making the characters dance to the author's plots in ways that seem unlikely at best?You can say, "The fiction is merely a set of models that are manipulated by the players, in much the same way as they might also be manipulating miniatures and terrain, to play the game", and in your case this may be true.Likewise, one can say that "The fiction in a movie is merely a set of models that are manipulated by the actors, screenwriters, and director, in much the same way as they might also be manipulating props and sets, to resolve the plot (or to insert product placements)".  Or one can say that "The fiction in a book is merely a set of models that are manipulated by the writer to resolve the plot".  But these would reveal a rather shallow understanding of what film, books, and rpgs are capable of.Indeed, for some people -- perhaps not for you, but for some people -- a film that doesn't seem like it follows the logical outcome of its fictional space (including setting and characters) isn't a good film.....and seeing the hand of the author isn't a good thing in a novel.There are techniques of film-making, or writing, that disrupt the primacy of the fiction in what is being watched/read.  Just as there are rules techniques that disrupt what is occurring at the table.Actors can present good performances and bad performances.  It is nonsensical to say that this is not so of the performance "because it doesn't have an independent existence" -- it is likewise nonsensical in this context.So, again, this is a false dilemma.  Any argument that begins with the premise that the fiction cannot have primacy over the rules is an automatic fail.  Some of us -- I dare say, among older gamers at least, many of us -- have experienced it.  Or do experience it on a regular basis.If your argument is based on "I don't see it, so it doesn't exist", I wish you luck with that.  But you will only convince those who haven't experienced otherwise!How is this relevant?RC</blockquote>

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