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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8299421" data-attributes="member: 42582">1. is scene-framing/presenting a challenge. This wouldn't normally count as the GM "telling a story". Even Gygax suggests this is permissible - in his discussion of fudging a roll to detect a secret door "that leads to a complex of monsters and treasures that will be especially entertaining." (DMG p 110) While I think that this pushes against the overaching logic of Gygaxian play - given the players a leg-up in finding a good bit of the dungeon - I think it fells well short of "telling a story".2. is very localised framing. In AD&D it goes against the default rule of random determination of melee targets. In 4e, on the other hand, it's part of the GM's job to do exactly that sort of thing (4e PHB p 8): "The Dungeon Master controls the monsters and villains the player characters battle against, choosing their actions and rolling dice for their attacks." It's part of how the GM keeps the pressure up to the players.3. is imposing a limited failure or additional requirements of fictional positioning on a player's check. Unless it is a consequence of a failed check or similar on the player's part, it seems like GM force to me. It may or may not contribute to the telling of a story.4. depends on how the escape rules for the system work. In the systems I prefer it would be a scene framed on its own terms, and so the GM is at liberty to frame it as s/he thinks is appropriate (eg 4e PHB p 8: "The DM sets the pace of the story and presents the various challenges and encounters the players must overcome.").5. appears to be the GM deciding that a player's action declaration fails automatically, and not just on the basis of fiction that the GM has already established though is keeping secret from the players (as is standard in map-and-key play). It's hard for me to think of a context where this doesn't constitute force. This seems like the work of a GM who wants to tell a story.Obviously I'm not [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER], but I've read a lot of his posts over the years.Campbell is not positing the fiction as contrasting with the game mechanics presented in the rules. I think he largely agrees with the following remark <a href="http://lumpley.com/hardcore.html" target="_blank">made by Vincent Baker</a> about the relationship between mechanics and fiction:Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players and GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not. . . . So look, you! Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.Or unless we take the view that adopting a different suite of agendas-principles-techniques makes it a different game.</blockquote>

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