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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 9084076" data-attributes="member: 82106">Well, you'll have to address the ARGUMENT and not the MESSENGER if you want to have THAT discussion. Lets just say that when your approach to RPG analysis has spawned an entire subindustry of games, then lets talk....Nothing 'happens' in game worlds, that's the point where we diverge, I have no need for a self-contained novel to exist in my setting. It really isn't all that special anyway! But even assuming you DO want to have completely NPC-driven meta-plot (and I'm not really against that either) I'm not sure why that must be constrained to be 'simulationist'. I think you're bringing some OTHER stuff that is as-of-yet unexamined.As with the idea of things happening in a setting, I am not personally very taken with the notion that 'agency', which seems to involve WILL and certain cognitive functions can be applied to a setting, or to NPCs, or even to PCs except as a shorthand for player agency. So I guess a GM can invent and play through (or at least imagine) a whole scenario that doesn't involve anyone else. I'm perfectly OK with calling that 'GM agency'.It would, to me, mean that I was simply engaging in picking from pre-ordained sets of choices. I could be playing, in a game sense, as for instance, I might fight a battle and utilize tactics to win (or fail and lose). But this gets to be a bit of an 'excluded middle' kind of thing at a certain point.I guess I find it odd how afraid trad GMs seem to be of this eventuality. For instance I ran a 4e campaign that lasted from 2008 to 2011, and during the last 2 years of it, I PREPPED NOTHING. I rand 2 more 4e campaigns after that in 2011-2013, and NEVER prepped anything at all! I mean, I came up with some battle maps, and lists of stat blocks that I thought would probably make a good fight. Often I spent 5 to 10 minutes per session doing that! It might be a case of me overestimating how well those games played, but they lasted a good while and everyone SEEMED pretty happy and kept coming back. I didn't perceive any deficiencies in play.I think you can see why I call what you describe as being 'GM-driven' as it is very heavily centered on setting and material provided BY the GM without reference to anything the players/PCs bring to the table. While I think that kind of play is often 'simulationist' in some sense, I will agree with others who say that the term, as often used in GNS, is perhaps not the best word for it.</blockquote>

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