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Message: <blockquote data-quote="thefutilist" data-source="post: 9658754" data-attributes="member: 7044566">Well I specifically wouldn't say that. Or rather, without context it makes no sense to say that because we're talking about techniques. I have no idea whether there are any techniques that could 'improve' your play, assuming you even found it desirable.The most common way of getting Narrativism in trad play is to front load the contrivance in prep and then have no contrivance at all during play. In fact there are arguments that certain types of contrivance in play would be destructive to the whole endeavour.'Living world techniques' are very similar to how you'd prep but you're making sure that the initial situation is tense in such a way that no matter what happens, it has some kind of pay off. Even if a character says 'screw this I'm off to start a stray dog sanctuary', then the character is constructed in such a way that this is a meaningful decision.So in this regard. The Narrativist critique is 'hey I notice you're prepping a lot of tense geopolitical events rather than say, the types of fish found in the various rivers and their migration patterns.' Almost as if you're prepping for 'adventure stuff' rather than 'fishing stuff.'Also if I make a character that has the background:I want vengeance on my brother (the current King, rules in a climate of peace), he killed our warmonger father (the last King). I do actually want peace though and my anger issues mean I'm bad at leading people.Then can I do that within a 'living world'. If I can, then aren't we at the breaking point for contrivance?If I can't and must make an 'adventurer' who doesn't fit into the created geo-political landscape because the GM already has the world all prepared. Then isn't that itself a contrivance?I'm not saying, it's all contrivance so throw away this living world nonsense and create a Sophies choice scenario each scene.I am saying that to the extent that you must alter the world (during prep) to accommodate a character with drives, ambition and capacity, then that's the extent to which you've already stepped over the Narrativist threshold.</blockquote>

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