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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9509889" data-attributes="member: 42582">This seems to be a non-sequitur: from the fact that interaction is a necessary condition of something being a game, it does not follow that it is a sufficient condition. This seems to be using "story" in a very loose sense, of something like "tension" and "release" occurring over the course of a series of connected and intentionally-driven events.There are other ways of thinking about story which can be relevant to RPGers, but which don't entail that all games are story generators.The reason that RPGs present an open-ended possibility space is because (i) players have a fictional position, which both shapes what moves they can make and matters to the resolution of those moves, and (ii) a fiction is inherently open-ended.I don't think that RPGing needs to involve "improv" in any sense beyond this. I mean it might, of course, in some particular game; but the bear minimum is simply the salience to play of the fiction, as per my (i) and (ii).There a range of approaches to establishing a "story spine" for a RPG session. Many have little connection to "improv" because they rely heavily on prep. And prep - establishing stuff ahead of time - is not improv.I don't really see how agreeing on a premise - be that a genre premise, a situation premise, a thematic premise, or whatever - is railroading. Or blocking.Nor do I see what that has to do with PbtA or "writers' room". If, when playing Apocalypse World or Dungeon World, you're having the experience that you describe, then I think something is going wrong in your application of the procedures of play. Because those rules are pretty clear about who is obliged to say stuff when, and what the parameters are that govern what they are allowed to say.As far as the mechanical "G" part of AW: it's about rolling 2d6, adding a small integer to it, and then following the resulting instruction. That's not meant to be especially fun in itself. Like other RPGs that use this sort of resolution (eg Classic Traveller), the fun is in the shared fiction - imagining it, experiencing it, creating it.The rules of a RPG are there to tell us who is supposed to say stuff, and when they're supposed to say it, and what the parameters are for the stuff that they say. The rules can prescribe all this very narrowly (eg rolling a result on a RM crit table) or very loosely (eg the rules of Apocalypse World telling the GM to make a soft move by looking to their fronts). But the basic purpose of the rules is pretty clear and well known.I don't need to adopt the strange notion that the game is a player of itself, in order to understand that there are different ways of RPGing, and different approaches, and that the game experience will vary with these, and that if I'm going to join a game it's helpful to know what the approach and hence experience might be.</blockquote>

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