You have a specific type of creative collaboration in mind, so I think it makes sense for you to create a term that best serves your goals. After all, we’re discussing your creative approach and its nuances.
I feel I have enough options to get the point across! But I also play other games beyond the one in question, so I don't really have one style in that sense.
Labels and such can help facilitate discussion, but we have to accept what the other party is saying. Sometimes, these discussions... despite several interesting points... can get too caught up in arguing about labels instead of the ideas behind them.
To me that's like saying an action movie has to be all full-blast action all the time, without any slowdowns for character development or plot development or (meta) to let the audience catch their breath after that last blast of light and sound. No sense of rise-and-fall pacing.
No, I don't think it does. It's more like saying that every scene needs to serve a purpose of some kind. That no scene should be dull or pointless.
Think about
@Faolyn 's example where her crew spent (most? all?) of a session engaged in roleplaying their characters talking over tea with, it seems, very limited if any stakes involved. From an external point of view that might not sound very exciting but in the there-and-then of that session it could have been (and by the sound of it, was) wonderful.
Perhaps. I think I missed the example. I don't know what the scene was about or what was being discussed.
I can say that just based on your description, that's likely not something I'd want in my game. I want conflict. I want decisions to be made and action to be taken.
That doesn't mean that there is anything at all wrong with it... I expect there are plenty of people who would enjoy such a session of play. I just imagine I'm not one of them.
As DM, if-when these sort of moments arise from the run of play I'm not going to deny them from occurring just so we can "get on with it" (whatever "it" is); and I hold that denying them would show me to be DMing very poorly.
I am willing to accept that you think my GMing is poor, Lanefan.
They're ingredients, then, that can become fully fleshed-out locations.
I guess I don't understand what you mean by autonomy and limited, then, because those two things are opposites in my mind. Unless you meant to say unlimited or don't have autonomy.
Well, my point was that player agency can be limited to the character's autonomy. It's a common refrain... the player must be limited to knowing and doing what the character knows and does. That the player cannot influence play beyond that.
I don't agree with that particular bit of wisdom.
Pretty much any game can allow for that, unless you're going wildly outside of the game's genre.
Sure, I'm not saying that any particular game can't allow for that. But I think some games don't make an effort to allow it, and may even actively advise against it. In many cases where it's not something explicitly stated in the rules, it requires collaboration between the GM and players to bring it about.
Essentially, if the rules don't insist on it, then it's something the GM has to be onboard with, or else it's not gonna happen.
I find the language of "interaction with the setting" tends to obscure what is going on.
The players interact with the GM. By saying things. Perhaps also pointing to things - eg "We go <here> on the map."
The GM interacts with the players by saying things, showing them maps, showing them pictures, etc.
The setting tends to used, somewhat indifferently, to refer to two things that are related but not identical:
(A) An abstract object - namely, some collection of descriptions, ideas, etc that collectively constitute an imaginary world (eg all the ideas that JRRT came up with that, taken collectively, constitute Middle Earth);
(B) A collection of more concrete things - writings, pictures, beliefs/thoughts in the GM's head - that, collectively, (i) encode/express bits of (A), and (ii) serve as cues or aides memoire or resources for the GM to make decisions in the course of play
When we talk about the players interacting with the setting, what we mean - I think - is something like:
* The players have some beliefs/thoughts that encode bits of (A) - stuff the GM told them, stuff they read from the blurb on the back of a book, stuff they've picked up from their own more intensive reading and/or listening, etc.
* Using those beliefs and thoughts to help inform their sense of fictional position, the players declare actions for their PCs.
* The GM, drawing on (B) above, makes a decision about what happens next - or decides to disclaim decision-making to some extent, and makes a dice roll of some sort or calls for a player to make a roll of some sort.
* The GM relays some of that decision to the players - not necessarily all of it, as the GM may make decisions that add to or change (B), which the GM doesn't share with the players (consider, eg, the example where, by charming a NPC in a tavern, the PCs bring it about that the duke is not protected from assassination).
It could probably be unpacked a bit more, but I think what I've said gets at the general gist of it.
Yeah, that was simply worded on my part. In several of my other posts, I make similar points to what you make above... that there's no actual geography going on, there are kinds categories and then when players select those categories, the GM introduces elements relevant to the category.
It seems pretty obvious to me that there are people in this conversation who believe it is literally impossible for a GM to provide players with sufficient information and to rule consistently enough for players to be able to make informed (edit: or meaningful) decisions and rely on the outcomes in a game where the GM has ultimately authority over elements of the world that are not the PCs. Anyone feeling like that is obviously going to oppose any system of play that provides GMs with that authority and relies on them to provide information and rule consistently.
Unfortunately, that doesn't really leave any room for dialogue when the other side finds play most enjoyable when GMs do have that authority and the players are relying on them to do that (supposedly impossible) thing, providing sufficient information and being implicitly trusted to rule consistently.
There are those of us who actually play games of multiple types, though! I don't oppose any system of play that gives the GM ultimate authority... I actually play and run in those games (even if I don't tend to utilize the full authority granted to me as GM). I just view such games as necessarily GM-directed. The shape of play is determined mostly by the GM, with the players contributing via making decisions for their characters.
But as
@zakael19 shared not far upthread... there's some common themes across multiple kinds of play that are striving for player-driven play... those tend to be about openly sharing information as much as possible. About not hoarding secrets and using them to block or thwart players. About promoting play of the game rather than focusing on the setting.
