Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8440013" data-attributes="member: 42582">How many times do I have to post that "situation first" also includes "living novel" play of the sort that Lewis Pulsipher was criticising back in the late 70s? (EDIT: As best I can tell, [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER]'s "Calvinball" as an instance of improv that is contrasted with "story now - post 1252 - is what I am calling "living novel", or at least pretty much in the same ballpark.)Here's a post I made, reflecting on those criticism, about 4 years ago:In the context of this current thread, "manipulating players" is what has been referred to as Force.And what "story now" RPGing generally relies upon is ways of allowing stuff to be made up on the spot that do yield genuine consequences and that don't require the use of Force. AD&D is a bit more rickety in this respect than Burning Wheel; I suspect the same is true of 5e D&D. But it can be done in AD&D and can probably be done in 5e.If someone is doing this using "backstory first" rather than "situation first" then they should post about it. Without an example of that, though, I am stuck with my own thought that there is the risk of the occasional dull adventure - because the players don't engage the right bit of backstory - unless the GM uses Force to override the "natural" consequences of those dullness-threatening action declarations.And as I've already posted, if this becomes anything like a regular occurrence then why maintain the pretence of backstory first play?</blockquote>

Verification