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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mike Eagling" data-source="post: 6152251" data-attributes="member: 6703609">With apologies for a potential thread derail...I think this quote neatly sums up my attitude to The Forge. I find it interesting that people have deconstructed RPGs in such an academic manner--the hobby/industry has "grown up" if you will--but it's tangential to the vast majority of people's experience, much as how people can enjoy Jane Austin without a degree in English Literature. Its terminology is arguably helpful in discussions such as this but, unlike in academic discourse, the jargon is not ubiquitous.Yes, this is my interpretation of Author stance too. I wonder if "Author" is perhaps an inaccurate term--but that is a discussion for another thread!Whilst I agree with the first part of this I'm not so sure about the part I've emphasised, although that may just be a difference in perspective.I believe it's possible to draw a (very loose) comparison between Actor stance and Method Acting: the player strives to remain in character throughout, using only in-character knowledge and psychological motivation to dictate the PC's actions.In contrast, Pawn stance views the character sheet as little more than a player token in Monopoly: it is the means by which the player interacts with the game environment, with no regard to the motivation of the character itself. "Character" here is somewhat of a misnomer.Author stance stands somewhere between the two. It is similar to Actor stance in that the psychological motivation of the character is often important to the player but this motivation is modified, possibly retroactively, by the metagame considerations of the player. Author stance is similar to Pawn stance in that the character is often a means to an end for the player to interact with the game environment (by doing "cool stuff") irrespective of what "the character" would be motivated to do in that situation. The Forge clearly distinguishes between Actor and Author stance and places Pawn stance as a subset of Author stance. As [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] suggests, the line is somewhat fuzzy in practicality if not in definition.I don't think any of these three stances (Actor, Author and Pawn) have the "authority" to dictate the relationship between the PC and the guard. However, a successful skill check (for example) could be rationalised and explained in-fiction as such.That's my take on things, at any rate <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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