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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6862650" data-attributes="member: 2067">I think there's plenty of room for different playstyles, some of which are very concerned about who gets to control and contribute to the world and its fiction. These playstyles I think seek out more and better opportunities to create interesting stories. The major play goal is to create a good narrative. In the MDA model, you could say they're leaning toward expression - having fun using the game to be creative, generating cool and interesting stories. That's one of the major things they seek out of a TTRPG. More of this good! You'd be hard-pressed to say this wasn't some a part of EVERY TTRPG experience, but for me, my play goals shift depending on if I'm the DM or the player. As a DM, that expression is absolutely one of my big play goals. As a player, it's really not.Instead, as a player, I seek out what the MDA model might call Fantasy - I want to pretend to be someone else. My primary play goal isn't in creating a story, it's in pretending to be a different person. Much like an actor trusts a director and a writer to have bigger things in mind than The Moment, so that they can get fully into the character's mindset in that moment, as a player, I trust my DM is busy behind the scenes making an interesting story, and my duty (and where I have the most fun) is in focusing on the moment-to-moment of thinking in a character's mindset. A good DM (like a good director) can follow the energy where it leads, can set a stage, can keep your motivations in mind. This is part of why meta-mechanics (as relied on by many indie RPGs in the interests of telling an interesting story) kick my fun in the junk so hard. My play goal isn't to create an interesting story. It's to be an interesting person, and those are not the same goals and they are not supported by the same mechanics and they can be alongside each other much of the time, but sometimes they can conflict with each other. Meta-mechanics are one of those conflicting places. I think when talking about a "general audience" (ie, people who may have never played a TTRPG before), you can get a lot of variation. But it might be useful to think about it in terms of low barriers to entry. "Pretend to be a wizard" has a typically lower barrier to entry than "Tell a good story about a wizard." But a good creativity game makes the latter easier, and if that's the goal you're going to get people who LIKE that challenge anyway. To maybe get the analogy a bit closer to the feeling: the skillset for being a good actor and the skillset for being a good director are different skillsets. Having these being defined roles means that a production can use disparate skillsets and talents and interests in the service of a bigger goal. As a player, I can worry more about my performance. As a DM, I can worry more about my narrative. Or to bring it back around to the subtly condescending planchette analogy: if one person controls the planchette and answers the questions while the other people try to ask interesting questions, this makes the game more broadly appealing than a game that just concerns itself with planchette controls, because some players can have a different kind of fun in asking questions than other players who have fun moving the planchette around. Then, you're looking at what happens when a ouija board becomes a medium.</blockquote>

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