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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5884178" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'm not the biggest fan of your "DM as storyteller" category, because it lumps together some pretty different things.The idea of "guiding the PCs along the plot towards the planned encounters", for example, is pretty different from "framing scenes". Scene-framing leaves it open how the scene will resolve. "Guiding", on the other hand, implies that the resolution of the scene is already pre-determined to some lesser or greater extent.This also has implications for how "Storytelling" relates to "Judging". You give this example:But in a game that puts emphasis on the GM as scene-framer, but also assumes that the players are free to resolve scenes as they like, then the example might not look like either your classic D&D or your 3E, but more like this:The GM chooses the attitude of the ogre, with reference to both (i) the outcomes of prior scenes, and (ii) the thematic priorities that the players have formally or informally flagged in their build and play of their PCs. The players use the rules to engage the scene. (In 4e, this would normally be via skill checks.) The GM extrapolates the scene based on the outcome of the mechanics - if the player succeeds, the scene moves closer to what s/he wanted, but if s/he fails, the scene moves further from what s/he wanted. Either outcome still leaves the scene in doubt, thereby motivating the players to continue to engage it. Rinse and repeat until the scene is closed, and therefore no longer in doubt. (In 4e, by default the scene is closed after N+2 successes or 3 failures, assuming a skill challenge of complexity N.)In this sort of play, the GM's most important role is actually extrapolating out the consequences for successful or failed checks, so that (i) the scene moves in the appropriate direction (ie closer to or further from what the player desired, depending on mechanical outcome of engaging the scene) and yet (ii) the scene doesn't close too early. This involves fiat comparable in some ways to your "DM as judge" (there is also the fiat involved in framing the scene, comparable to your DM as storyteller). But the mechanics set parameters on the exercise of this fiat - the GM is obliged to push things towards or away from what the player (playing his/her PC) wants the outcome to be. So the GM is in not solely, or even primarily, in charge of how things turn out - for example, if the player decides that his/her PC will try to negotiate a contract with the ogre, it is irrelevant whether or not the GM envisaged that: it depends on how the mechanical resolution plays out.</blockquote>

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