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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6571315" data-attributes="member: 42582">It does have an agenda, namely, an agenda of dramatic neutrality!That may not be an agenda that you care about it, but it's an agenda that is important to me, and one that I've become increasingly conscious of over the years.The two systems that I am aware of that have the greatest degree of "dramatic neutrality" are classics: Runequest and Traveller. I have played them both, I love them both, I re-read the books fairly regularly. But I would never play them on an ongoing basis, because they would not produce the sort of play experience I am interested in having. Rather, they would "force an agenda" on me, namely, the agenda of dramatic neutrality.And pulling back to a higher level of abstraction and observation: roleplaying games are about creating shared fictions. Referees create imaginary worlds; players create imaginary persons; the gist of play involves describing events - made-up events - happening to those persons in those worlds.This need not be a literary pastime - Gygaxian D&D is not, for instance - but it obviously has potential connections to ideas of literature and story-telling. The notion that a game of this sort taking a stand on whether or not PCs are protagonists is not pushing an agenda is mind-boggling to me.</blockquote>