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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6859356" data-attributes="member: 4937">When you play an RPG, the very definition you are using for play implies that when you play an RPG you are not usually the GM.  As someone who on the other hand is usually the GM, my definition of playing the game isn't confined to, "What would the NPC do in this situation?" by necessity.  My premise really had nothing to do with how you approach the game, or what is often called a player's "stance".  In the case of your approach, "what would my character do in this situation?", that's what is often called "actor stance".  A slightly different approach might be, "What can I do with the character to achieve my goals?", which is often called, "pawn stance".   But regardless of the player's mental model for play that governs which proposition's he makes, the premise of my essay is that the player's propositions are resolved using a variety of often disparate game systems with the referee selects from based on the nature of the proposition and through which the proposition is resolved and the referee responds to a proposition.  Each of these different subsystems represents its own game which can be played independently of all the other ones, but which is unified with all the other subsystems through the game's fiction.So for example, you might encounter an Ogre.  The Ogre demands a bribe to allow the party to pass unmolested - perhaps he wants to eat the parties mule.  This could trigger a negotiation minigame where the party members negotiate the terms of the bribe, or attempt to convince the Ogre that the mule is too tough to be good eating, or that they are such fearsome warriors that the Ogre better just clear out.  This game might traditionally, for example, be played as a free form theater game with the GM eventually deciding whether the player's arguments are convincing.  Or at a different table or with different rules, it might be played out as a form of social combat or a skill challenge.Eventually, the Ogre may become outraged or the player's tire of negotiations, and the DM may declare, "Roll for initiative."  This declaration triggers the start of a completely new mini-game.  The DM may get out a battlemap; the player's may get out miniatures.  And the battle will now be tracked carefully from combat round to combat round according to the rules governing combat.   When the battle is over, the minatures might be put a way, the careful tracking of seconds of time dispensed with, and a new scale of time tracking entered into as the players search the body of the ogre and the room for loot.</blockquote>

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