Yes and no. Suppose a player builds into his PC's backstory "I was trained by a mysterious sorcerer to act as his agent in his revenge against the wizards' guild that expelled him. But the morning after my final lesson in the words of power, I awoke before dawn, collected my spellbook and familiar, and ran off to pursue my own destiny in the world". This player seems to me to have given the GM licence to initiate a scenario about betrayal and loss...
It's worth noting though that to the extent that this is true, it doesn't contridict what I've said. I said the player has the right to set his stakes in the story, and what you've outlined is one way that the player can do that.
In the above case, the player has made the choice. No one forced him into the role of betrayer. The player has chosen his hooks and hinted at a stake in the story he'd be interested in. All well and good.
Or to give a different sort of example - it's not per se objectionable for the GM to begin a session with "Rember last session you had returned to your rooms in the inn after a day spent talking with your contacts in the city. Well, you wake up - but you're not in your rooms anymore. It's dark, but you can feel metal shackles on your arms and smell the dampness of the baron's dungeons."
Well, it's not
per se always objectionable to begin a session that way, but at least in my case it would probably be my last session with the DM and I'd quietly find some excuses for not coming back. It's just not the way I want to play the game. I might enjoy that sort of 'bang bang' style of play as a one off but the lack of freedom inherent in such a situation is going to prevent me from investing much in the character in the long term, and I'd just never get involved in a campaign length game where the DM went 'bang' and I danced the tune, and then the DM said 'bang' again. That gets really old in a hurry for me, and as I previously indicated, in some cases once is more than enough.
In either sort of case, I agree that once the GM frames the situation, it's up to the players to react.
Sure, I agree, but I think there vast differences between the two 'bangs' you presented. They are so far apart in my opinion that I don't even like to see them joined together. In the one case, the world is unfolding around me and I may choose to participate in it. In the other case, the world is unfolding around me quite without my participation and I've essentially been game-raped. If I go into a game not knowing that its a game where sort of thing is going to happen, then don't be suprised if you lose a player.
There are some high narrativist games where 'cut to the action' is part of the standard mechanics of the game, but mostly they are designed to be somewhat close ended and trade off that sort of scene framing imposition with various stake setting and scene framing powers being expressedly and mechanically put in the hands of the players. More importantly, you go into that sort of thing eyes open.
And just as important as mechanical issues - maybe more important - are shared expectations among players and GM as to what the game will be about and how the GM may proceed in scene framing.
Yes.
If players have been burned by adversarial GMing in the past, then they can be very hesitant to cede any scene framing power to the GM...
This is so vague and so inclusive that it completely obscures the point. First of all, there is absolutely no direct relationship between 'adversarial GMing' and 'scene framing power'. Most 'adversarial GMing' I've encountered had little to nothing to do with scene framing. You can get burned by adversarial GMing without feeling that the problem is that the GM is taking away your freedom with scene frames. There are all sorts of ways of disempowering the player. Secondly, a player might be perfectly willing and even excited about creating backgrounds, NPC relationships, and so forth without being happy to be told what there players have done or without being happy to have their own actions narrated to them.
Seriously, I'm more than happy to create a background filled with all sorts of hooks and cede to the GM explicit permission to twist the hooks, without being in the slightest bit happy to hear my players actions narrated back to him without the slightest bit of input on my part. Seriously, if the DM wants to play my PC, I'm going to cede the PC over to him and walk away from the game. That has nothing to do with not wanting to trust NPCs or not wanting to have a background. It simply is the desire to play my own damn character.
their PCs have no backgrounds, no relationships, trust no PCs etc, and the players always insist that they have a roll to awaken in the tavern room, a (game-mechanical) chance to draw their weapons and fight off the would-be captors, etc. While this is one way to play an RPG, it is not the only one, and (in my experience) it tends to lead to games which, while perhaps tactically and even strategically interesting, are not all that engaging at the thematic level for either player or GM.
False dilemma. I refuse to accept your two buckets as being inclusive. It's quite possible to play a game that doesn't resemble either of the two things you've described. And, for my part I find it interesting that you think you have to play the player's character before the game is thematicly interesting to you as the GM.
The solution here is to frame the scene at the right level and at the right point in the action. Depending how hard the GM is allowed to be (ie depending upon the preferences of the group), when the GM says "You board the ship and have been at sea for a week when a storm approaches" the players may be obliged to start from that point, or alternatively to treat the GM's description as a suggestion, from which the players may pull back if they want to - "No, my PC would never board a ship - she gets seasick - I would have coughed up the money for a teleport instead".
It seems to me that the GM narration, "You board the ship..." is only appropriate if the player has first asserted, "I want to board the ship." If the player hasn't asserted the intention to board the ship, the DM is not in his rights to narrate that the player has boarded the ship. If the PC hasn't asserted that its his intention to sail to Joppa and if possible cut the scene because sailing to Joppa is old hat, the DM doesn't really have a right to say, "Ok, so you've been at sea a for a week." Hand waving is something that ought to happen by mutual agreement. If you have that give and take between player proposition and and GM narration, then you don't have to worry about 'No, my PC would never board a ship', because the DM narrates nothing but the consequences of clear player intention. "I board the ship.", "I greet the Captain.", "I retire to my quarters.", etc. or even without the need for DM narration because the gamespace is, being familiar and controlled, now effectively player owned, "I board the ship, greet the captain, and retire to my quarters."
Different approaches to GM power here obviously matter for the shape of the game, but don't have to involve deprotagonising players.
It's possible to disempower players without deprotagonising them. You can be the protagonist on a railroad and have nothing to do but view the scenary. It's sort of like a Choose Your Own Adventure Book - occassionally the author decides that you can make a decision and in the mean time you can take in the story that's happening to you. It doesn't follow that players are going to be happy with that level of control over the game just because events revolve around them. If events are revolving around me but I have no input in them, its edging toward passively listening to a storyteller and away from actively participating in in a game. Eventually when the game gets 'bang' 'bang' enough, the only participation a player has is Mad Lib fill in the blank in a story that is largely already filled out.
I think this is a pretty reasonable way to go, assuming that it fits with the preferences of those at the table. If everyone is content for a certain seem to be framed - or actively wants it to be framed - then just do so.
Anything can be justifiied by 'everyone at the table consents to it'. Probably everything works for some table. Literally everything. If that is going to be the guide and the standard, we might as well advise people to play F.A.T.A.L.
Don't faff around hoping that the action resolution mechanics will get you there.
Ron Edwards kills another mind. I reject his theory, here repeated, that you can't get to story through proposition/resolution mechanics. You can get there just fine in my experience. And you can get there with out horned Trollbabes and tantric magic. But, I guess those work fine at some peoples tables too.
(This can be seen as another implimentation of the motto "say yes or roll the dice".)
I don't see how. To the extent that I think that oft abused phrase means anything, it has to do with how you resolve propositions. You've been constructing an argument against allowing the players to have propositions except those that you provide for them. It's preemptively saying 'no' as far as I'm concerned.
