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Message: <blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 5690124" data-attributes="member: 463">What I'd like to say about this is that's a case of the GM changing the backstory - facts already established in the GM's head - in response to  PC/player input.  While this is not necessarily a bad thing to do, it's not what I'm talking about when I discuss meaningful player choices and PC-based campaigns.  In the default sandboxy style I use, I don't normally change established backstory to fit with player preference (even backstory unknown to the players), although when something is not yet defined I will certainly establish the facts in accord with expressed player interest & what looks like being the most interesting answer. The risk with changing established backstory is that the game-world feels incoherent, inconsistent, and more like a PC-dependent 'living dream' than a real place.  A good example is a 'Blade Runner' computer game I once played, where (AIR) you play Deckard, and whether or not Deckard turns out to have been an android all along is determined by player choices in play: be nice to the renegade Replicants and it turns out you're one of them too; gun them down and sure, you're human, you get a medal!  <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" />  Personally I find this postmodernist, 'no such thing as objective truth', Deconstructionist approach to be fairly unsatisfying.  I'd be a lot more interested in questions like: "OK you gunned down all the Replicants, but actually you ARE one", or, even better "OK you've helped them, but you are actually Human, and they'll be dead in 4 years while you go on & on for decades...".These questions could arise from a particularly vicious 'floating reality' where reality changes to ensure the PCs are always screwed over by the 'wrong' choice, but I'm much more interested in worlds where reality is set, it's very clear that the PCs could have made a different choice based on that reality, and it's very clear that things would then have turned out differently.  The PCs believe the boy, optimistically try to befriend Nessie, and get chomped on, for instance.  Which is not to criticise Rowland's GMing choice - if the aim of the session is satisfying crafting of a compelling short story, his choice to change the backstory may have been correct.  I would say though that there are 'author stance' story-crafting games, and there are traditional 'actor stance' immersive RPGs, and they both are best at doing their own thing.  They have mechanics tailored either to shared story-crafting authority (author stance) or to "You are the Hero/GM is the World" (trad/actor-stance).  Forgotten Futures AIR is in the latter category.</blockquote>

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