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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 4921731" data-attributes="member: 21169">Not at all, as has already been mentioned many times. If a player gives another player tactical advice he's shaping play but not storytelling. If the GM consults a player who is an acknowledged expert on some field, say medieval weaponry, the player is shaping play but not storytelling. If a player asks the GM to make the monsters weaker or give out more magic items, he's shaping play but not storytelling. If the group have a discussion about a rules interpretation or what houserule to use, as happens frequently in rpgs, the players are shaping play but not storytelling.It could even be argued that when James Bond's player spends a hero point to have a gold brick to hand to beat Oddjob with he is not primarily storytelling. He's mostly just trying to win, within the restrictions of style and setting. It's really gamist, not narrativist. This is exactly how the players in my M&M game spend their hero points. They don't give a crap about story, they want their PCs to beat the bad guy or solve the mystery.I've seen this point made before about what you are calling storytelling mechanics. Fate points in WFRP or SotC, hero points in James Bond and M&M. They might seem to be mechanisms similar to those in Munchausen and Once Upon A Time, but because they exist in traditional challenge oriented rpgs the way they are used is totally different.Another point is that these mechanics are very limited in scope. They only affect the 'PC sphere'. Ie the field of influence of the PC, his history, his friends etc. Altering this 'sphere' has always been part of roleplaying. If you make a decision about what sort of person your character is you are necessarily deciding things about the world, about the character's environment, how he was brought up and so on. No man is an island. You simply cannot draw as clear a distinction as you are trying to do between PC and world. The two are intimately connected.</blockquote>

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