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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8645947" data-attributes="member: 42582">By R do you mean a syntactic/linguistic string, or do you mean a string bearing a semantic interpretation? If the former, then we seem to be talking homophones, so not only are there multiple Zs, but each one is a distinct semantic interpretation of a (merely homophonic) R. If the latter - ie if we individuate Rs by way of their semantic interpretation - then we seem to lose the difference between R and Z altogether: there are no "separate Zs for an R" but merely different Rs which are expressed using the same words under different semantic interpretations.There are a pretty wide range of moves that can be made to blunt my argument - eg distinguishing concepts from conceptions, or appeals to vagueness, or distinguishing between the semantic content of a rule and the judgement involved in its application - but none of them is uncontroversial, and probably more to the point I don't really see what any of them has to do with rule zero.Even suppose it to be true that roleplaying rules are particularly challenging or contentious in respect of their semantic interpretations, compared to other game rules - and frankly I don't see why such a supposition should be granted - that would still have nothing to do with rule zero. All it would mean is that for gameplay to commence among a group, they would have to settle on a sufficiently overlapping shared interpretation to permit that to happen.When I, and [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER], and [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER], and others, point to the role of GM fiat or "GM-as-glue" in a particular style of RPGing, we are not pointing to a phenomenon that is some sort of manifestation of the challenge of interpreting or applying or sticking to rules. We are pointing to a particular technique that some RPGs use. The technique is the one of the GM deciding, based on their conception of some or other aspect of gameplay (the shared fiction; pacing; spotlight; etc) when a situation is resolved. Burning Wheel - just to stick to one game that is not a GM-as-glue game - is not a game in which the GM decides when a situation is resolved. The roll of the dice does that. 4e skill challenges are the same in this respect. What makes BW and 4e different in this respect is that they include rules that GM-as-glue games do not (in the BW case, rules such as "intent and task" and "let it ride", as per my post upthread) and they require the use of techniques, such as non-neutral, non-extrapolative scene-framing, that are not essential (and indeed are often eschewed) in GM-as-glue play.These differences between RPGs are differences of rules and of techniques, just like (as per my post upthread) the difference between chess and charades is both rules (chess also differs from draughts in this respect) and techniques (chess and draughts are much closer in this respect). The metaphysical nature of game rules, and the psycho-social dynamics of game rule uptake - whatever those happen to be - doesn't explain the difference between BW play and GM-as-glue play. It is the difference in rules and techniques that does htat.As far as I can tell, you use "say what follows" to mean "say something sensible in the context of the game". That's good advice, but I don't think it tells us much about the details of, or varieties of, RPG play. Given that there is so much variation in systems - including in distributions of authority and expectations about how it will be used - and hence so much variation in context resulting from that alone, an injunction to "say what follows (from fiction, description, system)" is an injunction to do different things in different games. "Follow the rules" would be similar in this respect: it might be good advice, but if I follow the rules of boxing I'm going to have a pretty different experience from one in which I follow the rules of a primary school clap-and-sing game.In my Classic Traveller game, during its exploratory phase, when a player says "I look in the room" I say what follows: I tell them what their PC sees in the room. That doesn't stop it being exploratory play. That's part of what makes it exploratory play. I (typically) don's ask for a check. I consult the module. I make up details if I need to. My agenda is to convey a plausible and interesting world of the far future. I am not trying to provoke any response from the players. I am not putting them under any particular pressure.In the same game, as I have posted, I deliberately decided to move out of exploratory play by having the NPCs return to the surface, out of the ice-buried alien outpost. When the PCs followed, it wasn't long before conflict ensued. This was because, back on the surface, decisions had to be made, including decisions about who had jurisdiction (three nobles were competing in this respect, with one - being a naval officer - claiming to act in the name of the Imperium). When playing my NPCs, I said things that followed. But "what follows" isn't monolithic. People aren't automatons. I made deliberate choices to have the NPCs perform actions that would squeeze the PCs, compelling the players to respond in some fashion. I was adopting different principles to inform "what follows" from those I was using in the exploratory phase.I have no real sense of how you make your GMing decisions when you GM 5e. I don't know what principles guide you in opening and closing scenes. I don't know how you decide when situations are resolved. I know how I do those things playing Burning Wheel, because (i) the rulebook has clear instructions, and (ii) I follow them.I think you are trying to push a metaphor beyond the limits of its utility. I also don't know what "everything in play" refers to.I gave some examples of play in which the basic goal and expectation of play was to establish a shared fiction about the nature, the history, and the fate of an ice-buried, psionically-oriented alien compound. And the expectation was that that would be achieved by me, as GM, telling it to the players: not via reading them a story, but rather via the play of a RPG. Which means they declare actions for their PCs which oblige me, in response, to narrate some bit of setting, so that the players - imagining themselves as their PCs all pooling this information that they're learning - can gradually build up this fictional conception of the imagined world. This is an approach to RPG play which is very old, maybe as old as the hobby.@Campell, in his post about momentum/moves snowball, contrasted that with one thing naturally leads to the next by way of reasoning what the potential impact would be on the setting. I posted the examples that I've described in the previous paragraph and got a "love" response from Campbell, so I infer that he thinks I'm at least roughly correct in my understanding of the contrast he was drawing. In the approach to GMing that I've just described, which is one in which I say "what follows" using the method described earlier in this post, moves are not snowballing. I am not setting out to keep things in constant motion. The players' discussion is about the purposes of the compound, what happened to the aliens, etc. I am providing whatever answers or prompts or encouragements of further exploratory action that seem appropriate. It is no skin of my nose whether or not you or someone else wants to say that there is a use of "momentum" in which what I've just described has it. But there is clearly a different use - [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER]'s use - in which it does not, and that's the use I was responding to.Contrast when the NPC noble asserts authority, and then puts one of the PCs on trial, and then that PC blows everyone up with a grenade: that's momentum, and moves snowballing. I am not providing answer or prompts that fill in information about the setting. The focus of play is not on obtaining that information. I am deliberately creating pressure on the players, via their PCs, which is provoking them into declaring actions in which things that matter to them (in virtue of their identification with their PCs) are put at stake. That's what I mean, and I think what [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER] means, by "momentum".</blockquote>

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