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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9081017" data-attributes="member: 42582">Various threads - eg the <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/why-do-rpgs-have-rules.697430/" target="_blank">"why rules?" thread</a>, and the <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/dealing-with-agency-and-retcon-in-semi-sandbox.698661/" target="_blank">agency</a> <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/what-is-player-agency-to-you.698831/" target="_blank">threads</a> - have prompted some conversations with RPGing friends.At least from my perspective, a recurring theme or element in discussion has been a contrast, between:*Play where the players establish dramatic needs for their PCs, and these drive play (in part because the GM presents situations that speak to those dramatic needs); *Play where the GM establishes the drivers of play.There are different ways of doing the second. One popular one involves the GM preparing, presenting and adjudicating a setting. One of my friends offered the following description of this way of using setting, which I though was pretty good. Here it is (as paraphrased by me):In this sort of setting-focused play, what is central is the GM's orientation towards framing, and towards content introduction more generally. The GM is akin to a guide. (Which contrasts with the first approach above, where the GM is provoking the players to action based on the player-established dramatic need, and using the relevant system tools.) And the setting is the default protagonist: each NPC, each faction, each "side-quest" that the GM presents to the players, has its own dramatic need that propels play; and it's the players' job to get in on the action, and hopefully to find some overlapping interest with one or more of these setting elements.This approach also brings some related expectations and techniques (and here's some more paraphrase):*Players must be willing to accept the role of the setting as default protagonists. In this sort of play, it is disruptive for a player to subvert the focus on the GM's presented elements, and to try and make play about their PC's own dramatic needs. (A label I've seen for such disruptive play is main character syndrome.) *There is a very "breezy", relaxed approach to free play - ie the players declaring low-stakes exploratory actions for their PCs (basically wandering around the world), which the GM responds to by revealing appropriate elements of the setting. The ethos is one of "We'll get there when we get there." In this sort of play, for the GM to be pushy or obviously proactive about one of the setting elements they have established is seen as tantamount to railroading, or at least to be the thin edge of the railroading wedge.It is sometimes assumed that the only alternative to this sort of play is "linear", railroad-y, adventure path-style RPGing. But that's obviously not true - see the first entry of my two contrasted approaches at the top of this post. Once we put aside that assumption, and try and describe the setting-sim approach on its own terms rather than in terms of some single conjectured contrast, I think we can get a clearer picture of how it works.</blockquote>

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