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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5181212" data-attributes="member: 4937">One quick note.&nbsp; Let me go ahead and define a term for what I think tends to happen when you try to run to far away from illusionism as a DM - &quot;rowboat settings&quot;.A rowboat setting is when the players are dropped into a (metaphorical) rowboat in an extremely broad superficially detailed setting - like say an ocean or the middle of outerspace.&nbsp; The players are then told to row the boat whereever they want.&nbsp; They can head in any direction they want.&nbsp; They just can't actually ever get anywhere meaningful.&nbsp; Day after day, session after session, they row the boat furiously.&nbsp; And day after day, session after session, they encounter the same drearily similar universe of random meaningless happenstance.&nbsp; Each session is perhaps filled with furious frantic activity, and each day the rowboat is perhaps in a little bit different of a place than it was the day before.&nbsp; The setting is probably realistic, maybe even hyperrealistic, and the players can make whatever choices they want, but precisely because of this they can't actually do anything meaningful because player agency becomes so tightly constrained by character agency.&nbsp; The characters - as with real people - don't really have infinite choices either, because real worlds don't actually provide real people with infinite choices either much less exciting story structured lives.Now, as with illusionism, I'm not trying to damn the rowboat either.&nbsp; Frankly, being in the rowboat from time to time is alot of fun.&nbsp; I just would like to get out occassionally and 'take a train' so I can actually get somewhere.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 5181212, member: 4937"] One quick note. Let me go ahead and define a term for what I think tends to happen when you try to run to far away from illusionism as a DM - "rowboat settings". A rowboat setting is when the players are dropped into a (metaphorical) rowboat in an extremely broad superficially detailed setting - like say an ocean or the middle of outerspace. The players are then told to row the boat whereever they want. They can head in any direction they want. They just can't actually ever get anywhere meaningful. Day after day, session after session, they row the boat furiously. And day after day, session after session, they encounter the same drearily similar universe of random meaningless happenstance. Each session is perhaps filled with furious frantic activity, and each day the rowboat is perhaps in a little bit different of a place than it was the day before. The setting is probably realistic, maybe even hyperrealistic, and the players can make whatever choices they want, but precisely because of this they can't actually do anything meaningful because player agency becomes so tightly constrained by character agency. The characters - as with real people - don't really have infinite choices either, because real worlds don't actually provide real people with infinite choices either much less exciting story structured lives. Now, as with illusionism, I'm not trying to damn the rowboat either. Frankly, being in the rowboat from time to time is alot of fun. I just would like to get out occassionally and 'take a train' so I can actually get somewhere. [/QUOTE]

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