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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8569780" data-attributes="member: 42582">The OP does describe something a bit more specific than that.The OP isn't meant to be a criticism of this method. In the most recent three sessions of RPGing that I GMed (all Torchbearer), the start of play involved me describing to the players where their PCs were, and what was interesting about it. (The players then chose their PC goals.)What the OP is saying is that this sort of technique seems at odds with an anti-metagaming/anti-OOC knowledge agenda.Sure! Again, the OP isn't hostile to cues and foreshadowing and other &quot;storytelling&quot; techniques. Just saying that they don't seem consistent with an opposition to players acting on metagame/OOC knowledge.One non-traditional way is to have the player write the call-to-action for their PC.The traditional way in Classic Traveller is to have the players roll for a patron encounter (throw 5+ on one die, or 4+ if you have Carousing-1+, checking once per week). The players still have metagame knowledge, but it's a bit narrower than the examples I gave in the OP - in the fiction that patron quickly reveals that they are looking to hire a team of &quot;specialists&quot;, and the players' knowledge that there won't be another patron encounter check for a week corresponds at least roughly to the character's knowledge that the number of patrons (ie people with ready cash to pay freelancers to do weird things) is finite.I tend to share hawkeyefan's preference for some sort of immediacy over the slow drawing in.I've never GMed Apocalypse World, but I think it has an interesting set-up for the first session: rather than a GM hook for an adventure, we learn about the PCs in their world, and rely on the rules for narrating consequences, especially failures, and for framing (ie soft moves followed by hard moves) to make things happen.I've used a somewhat similar approach in Burning Wheel.The &quot;metagame&quot; dimension comes in via the rules for framing and for consequence narration, which direct the GM to do these things in a particular sort of non-&quot;neutral&quot; way.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8569780, member: 42582"] The OP does describe something a bit more specific than that. The OP isn't meant to be a criticism of this method. In the most recent three sessions of RPGing that I GMed (all Torchbearer), the start of play involved me describing to the players where their PCs were, and what was interesting about it. (The players then chose their PC goals.) What the OP is saying is that this sort of technique seems at odds with an anti-metagaming/anti-OOC knowledge agenda. Sure! Again, the OP isn't hostile to cues and foreshadowing and other "storytelling" techniques. Just saying that they don't seem consistent with an opposition to players acting on metagame/OOC knowledge. One non-traditional way is to have the player write the call-to-action for their PC. The traditional way in Classic Traveller is to have the players roll for a patron encounter (throw 5+ on one die, or 4+ if you have Carousing-1+, checking once per week). The players still have metagame knowledge, but it's a bit narrower than the examples I gave in the OP - in the fiction that patron quickly reveals that they are looking to hire a team of "specialists", and the players' knowledge that there won't be another patron encounter check for a week corresponds at least roughly to the character's knowledge that the number of patrons (ie people with ready cash to pay freelancers to do weird things) is finite. I tend to share hawkeyefan's preference for some sort of immediacy over the slow drawing in. I've never GMed Apocalypse World, but I think it has an interesting set-up for the first session: rather than a GM hook for an adventure, we learn about the PCs in their world, and rely on the rules for narrating consequences, especially failures, and for framing (ie soft moves followed by hard moves) to make things happen. I've used a somewhat similar approach in Burning Wheel. The "metagame" dimension comes in via the rules for framing and for consequence narration, which direct the GM to do these things in a particular sort of non-"neutral" way. [/QUOTE]

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