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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 9213855" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Likely my last contribution to this thread, but this is exactly why I'm mostly not interested in these conversations anymore; the invariable, intentional thread drift toward this preoccupation with connotation of this word or that word.  This has become ENWorld and its absolutely insufferable.  Its not a conversation I care to have.  Its the inverse of both interesting and growth of understanding (individual or collective) of what we're all doing at our various tables.  And the fact that you make the assumption that I care about connotation as it relates to writer's room?  Why in the world would you do that?  If you're preoccupied with connotation that is fine.  But leave me out of it.  I'm assuming its me being invoked here because I'm the person who always pushes back against "writer's room" and did just that in this thread most recent.One more time, here is my problem with "writer's room" as a descriptor for any games that I run.Its not correct.Let me say that again for those in the back.Its not correct.A correct invocation of the concept of "writer's room" (for that concept to actually mean anything) means the following (which is what happens when a group of people with equal authorship get together to write a script/sketch etc):1) Group of people.Ok, we're fine so far.2) Equal authorship roles and rights across all participants.We're very much not fine here.3) The script/sketch-authorship has all of the following salient features:* There is no binding exogenous procedure or systemic architecture that must be hewn to by the participants.  Procedure and structure are not binding.  They are opt-out or opt-in at the discretion of the authors.* A desired arc that is forcibly mapped.* Following from the above, micro-outcomes that are constituents of that arc are known beforehand and inevitably delivered upon because you cannot attain the desired deterministic play of a forcibly mapped, desired arc without that.We're very, very, very much not fine here on all three bullet points.[HR][/HR]So what is the point of calling "players have significant say in the ingredients that propel a still-totally-up-for-grabs scene and play arc" a "writer's room?"  Its fundamentally not true.Someone may not like the systemization of that amount or type of say that players have in various games.  But that "player's say" that someone doesn't like doesn't come close to rising to requisite ingredients for the nomenclature of "writer's room."  So its just a bad categorization or descriptor.  If you were explaining a game to a new person and just said "its basically like if you're in a writer's room," then you're actively harming their understanding of what they're about to undertake.  Same goes for design.  If you said to some designer "basically design a game that is a writer's room," you're actively asking someone to design a game that doesn't remotely comport to the process or play of these games.So its not connotation that bothers me.  I don't care about connotation.its that its demonstrably wrong and harms individual/collective knowledge and communication.My complaints about mystification of process (regardless of the type of game to be run) come from the exact same foundation.   Mystification of process and obscurantism of "what we're doing" (no matter the game) is a net harm because the participants don't all know what they're doing, what skills they should be sharpening, and what they should be focusing on (and what they should be excluding) to bring the game to its "fullest life."  And it doesn't matter what type of game is being run.  Even if its a full-on railroad where the GM is discretionally abridging player input (or putting an extraordinarily low ceiling on player input) in order to deliver desired micro-outcomes and to forcibly map a desired arc onto play...and the players should be focusing on performative color and affectation while understanding the low ceiling of their mechanical input?  Even in that situation, every party would be better off in actualizing their respective roles and the social contract would be better preserved if all participants were transparent about what was going on.</blockquote>

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