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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6576113" data-attributes="member: 6696971">This is the same query  [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] posed above.   [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] addresses this nicely.  Again, illusionism is a diverse practice in GMing that is really contingent upon system (which is why I like that better than rules) and that system's play agenda.  In an exploration/sim based system (with all that agenda entails), covertly/opaquely rendering impotent player strategic decision-making because it doesn't fit the GM's own mental model (even if that mental model is flat wrong and the player is correct) is illusion.  The same goes for when the GM covertly subordinates the resolution mechanics (that result from declared player action and/or resource expenditure) because they think they have a better idea of how things should go.  The two cases are rarely in a vacuum in such games as things tend to snowball; eg once one case of illusionism occurs, another is likely to occur thereafter (either to perpetuate the situation or to equilibrate it bake if things go really haywire).The only real way I can think of illusionism happening in a Story Now engine (without the mechanics being consulted) is if the GM repeatedly uses the offscreen to put a very specific thing at stake (that isn't the premise of the game) that the player has already rightly won the security of (maybe more than once).  An example of this might be an NPC who does or does not count as a resource/asset die for the player's character.  If it does not have anything to do with the mechanics (eg the NPC isn't a mechanical resource to be leveraged), it may just be the GM trying to clumsily force emotion upon the player.  In this case the illusionism is brought bear by the GM's purview over the offscreen and scene framing and the player's agency stolen because they can never ensure security of this important NPC.  Again though, this sort of GMing would be so ham-handed and clumsy...so bloody obvious and ineffectual (in terms of engaging in the point of play and anything resembling fun)...they would be roundly derided (and rightly so) to the point that they would shut it down or learn how to friggin properly GM a Story Now game.However, if testing this thing is the actual premise of the game, then the GM is supposed to be repeatedly either creating situations where this at stake or making offers to the player to possibly stake it themselves.  This might be humanity, sanity, reputation, the fate of the flock, or your very life.  That can never be illusionism.</blockquote>

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