The Quantum Ogre Dilemma

[FrogReaver]

You're creating the straw man of perfect simulation in an attempt to invalidate my playstyle. My GMing goals are just that: goals. I strive to avoid forcing anything on the players outside of setting logic or their choices. If there is a "plot hook" (I dislike that narrative term, since my setting isn't a story with plot), it is either found in a specific place (where it remains even if the players don't go there), or it is potentially available in an area via a random roll. I don't put things in the PCs path because I want them to encounter them no matter what.

The whole point of your preferred kind of play is to put a bunch of stuff out there for the PCs to discover and interact with. Now it's true you aren't curating specifically which thing they encounter, but you did curate the world and all the things in it that they may encounter. You filled up the world with enough of such stuff such that they would encounter some interesting things pretty much no matter what they did. So while you aren't putting anything in specific in the PCs path, you are setting up the dominos so that one of the many specific things you thought would be interesting for the players will get encountered, even though you aren't directing to any specific one.

In terms of framing I think a deep assessment reveals that provided the PCs are in the right area then they'll encounter exactly what you wanted them to no matter what.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And they do that by framing consistent, versimiltudinous scenes with fantastic elements.

If framing scenes is what you want to do, sure, you can do that in a versimiltudinous way. But framing scenes is just one way to play, and it doesn't deserve some sort of special status.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The whole point of your preferred kind of play is to put a bunch of stuff out there for the PCs to discover and interact with. Now it's true you aren't curating specifically which thing they encounter, but you did curate the world and all the things in it that they may encounter. You filled up the world with enough of such stuff such that they would encounter some interesting things pretty much no matter what they did. So while you aren't putting anything in specific in the PCs path, you are setting up the dominos so that one of the many specific things you thought would be interesting for the players will get encountered, even though you aren't directing to any specific one.

In terms of framing I think a deep assessment reveals that provided the PCs are in the right area then they'll encounter exactly what you wanted them to no matter what.

I don't think in terms of "framing". I'm not even really sure what you mean. To me, that's just a buzz-phrase I hear @pemerton and some others throw around a lot. Like I said, I see it on the internet, not so much in actual RPG books.

In my game, I use lots of prep combined with random rolls to generate content off of setting-appropriate tables. But I don't control what the players decide to do with their characters, and I don't love everything I created equally (let alone the stuff that gets rolled up. That's a surprise to me too). So no, they don't just encounter exactly what I want them to. They encounter what's there.

 

[FrogReaver]

If framing scenes is what you want to do, sure, you can do that in a versimiltudinous way. But framing scenes is just one way to play, and it doesn't deserve some sort of special status.

When you tell the PCs what situation they are in that is framing a scene. You literally cannot play an rpg without doing this.

You seem under the assumption that it’s some narrativist technique. It’s not.

 

[FrogReaver]

In my game, I use lots of prep combined with random rolls to generate content off of setting-appropriate tables. But I don't control what the players decide to do with their characters, and I don't love everything I created equally (let alone the stuff that gets rolled up. That's a surprise to me too). So no, they don't just encounter exactly what I want them to. They encounter what's there.

The way those notes and random rolls become the fiction for the players is you frame those things as occurring. Explaining what’s in the fiction and hopefully how it relates to the premise of your game if not obvious is scene framing.

What’s there = Exactly what you want them to encounter.

 

[Morrus]

No response from the OP, so rather than treat this like spam, I've removed the link.

 

[Micah Sweet]

When you tell the PCs what situation they are in that is framing a scene. You literally cannot play an rpg without doing this.

You seem under the assumption that it’s some narrativist technique. It’s not.

I just describe what the PCs experience continuously as they experience it. If you're not setting up a specific situation but merely describing the world as new parts of it are revealed, you're not framing a scene. If it's not discrete, it's not a scene. That's what a scene is: a discrete chunk of time and space in which something happens. It is a storytelling technique.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The way those notes and random rolls become the fiction for the players is you frame those things as occurring. Explaining what’s in the fiction and hopefully how it relates to the premise of your game if not obvious is scene framing.

What’s there = Exactly what you want them to encounter.

No, that's just describing the world around the PCs and seeing how they respond. The play loop. It's not framing a scene. A scene is a story element.

Is there a definition of scene framing in relation to RPGs you're using that I can see?

 

[FrogReaver]

I just describe what the PCs experience continuously as they experience it. If you're not setting up a specific situation but merely describing the world as new parts of it are revealed, you're not framing a scene. If it's not discrete, it's not a scene. That's what a scene is: a discrete chunk of time and space in which something happens. It is a storytelling technique.

This might be helpful.

Struggling to place it as a link.

The Art of Pacing – Part 2: Scene-Framing

Go to Part 1Once you start skipping empty time it becomes necessary to frame the scene you’re skipping to: The continuous and relatively steady flow of events experienced in a classic dungeoncrawl

thealexandrian.net

 

[FrogReaver]

No, that's just describing the world around the PCs and seeing how they respond. The play loop. It's not framing a scene. A scene is a story element.

Is there a definition of scene framing in relation to RPGs you're using that I can see?

Okay. So when your PCs go through a forest, do you describe every tree, every plant their precise geometry, or only the important things? Do you put some red herrings in, things that seem potentially important but aren’t? Etc. You cannot have the PCs walk through a simple forest without scene framing.