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<blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8010886" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Its so difficult to get a read on exactly what is happening under the hood during play with the way some folks talk about their games. When I post an excerpt of play from one of my games, I don't think people can mistake exactly what is happening under the hood during play.&nbsp; It would go a long way toward clarity if people posted excerpts of what is happening during a moment of play in a way that captures (a) the actual GMing ethos of play and how that intersects with the framing of the situation at hand, (b) the resolution machinery, (c) player orientation toward the situation (habitation of their PC to the fiction, their personal cognitive workspace when managing the demands of the actual game component, and how their action declarations interface with all of the prior) that undergirds how play is propelled from one gamestate to the next.People have this tendency to zoom out, abstract a too-large-chunk, post a transcript of play like they're actually writing fiction, and invariably elide all kinds of details with statements like &quot;and then we made some rolls&quot;.&nbsp; &quot;Made some rolls&quot; or &quot;make a roll&quot; (or any variation thereof) couldn't be less helpful.&nbsp; That leaves respondents in a pretty precarious position trying to in-fill all of that elided information with presumption (or typically off-the-mark extrapolation) to sort out how gamestate 1 got to gamestate 2 got to gamestate 3.&nbsp; The lead post is a good example of this (which is why, in another thread, I requested a much higher resolution post-mortem of the play transcript).&nbsp; Please, when anyone is posting an actual excerpt of play, or even a hypothetical one, meaty, precise information about how and why a gamestate evolved is extremely important to having these kinds of discussions.&nbsp; Focus on a very small chunk of play like a laser beam and give good information on how it evolved to its next state.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Manbearcat, post: 8010886, member: 6696971"] Its so difficult to get a read on [I]exactly what is happening under the hood during play[/I] with the way some folks talk about their games. When I post an excerpt of play from one of my games, I don't think people can mistake [I]exactly what is happening under the hood during play. [/I] It would go a long way toward clarity if people posted excerpts of what is happening during a moment of play in a way that captures (a) the actual GMing ethos of play and how that intersects with the framing of the situation at hand, (b) the resolution machinery, (c) player orientation toward the situation (habitation of their PC to the fiction, their personal cognitive workspace when managing the demands of the actual game component, and how their action declarations interface with all of the prior) that undergirds how play is propelled from one gamestate to the next. People have this tendency to zoom out, abstract a too-large-chunk, post a transcript of play like they're actually writing fiction, and invariably elide all kinds of details with statements like "and then we made some rolls". "Made some rolls" or "make a roll" (or any variation thereof) couldn't be less helpful. That leaves respondents in a pretty precarious position trying to in-fill all of that elided information with presumption (or typically off-the-mark extrapolation) to sort out how gamestate 1 got to gamestate 2 got to gamestate 3. The lead post is a good example of this (which is why, in another thread, I requested a much higher resolution post-mortem of the play transcript). Please, when anyone is posting an actual excerpt of play, or even a hypothetical one, meaty, precise information about how and why a gamestate evolved is extremely important to having these kinds of discussions. Focus on a very small chunk of play like a laser beam and give good information on how it evolved to its next state. [/QUOTE]

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