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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6201404" data-attributes="member: 42582">I share your preference for a style of RPG which is about gaming within rules, rather than the thespian style of play, guided by the firm hand of a storytelling GM, that 2nd ed AD&D tended to encourage.I think it is too much, though, to say that D&D is one of those styles rather than the other. 2nd ed AD&D, and a fair bit of 3E/PF played in a similar style, are part of the tradition too. (See the current, very long Fighters vs Casters thread.)I don't think that what you say here about 4e is entirely wrong, but I don't think it is entirely right either.4e is not about turn-taking narration. In describing it that way you are, I think, missing the fact that the players in a 4e game are still inhabiting and participating in the game from the point of view of a particular character, and - within the structure of the action resolution rules that define what the player can aim at with that character - are taking part in building up the "campaign" (though as a sequence of dramatic events rather than a geographic setting - temporal sequence is more important than geographic location). The story is emergent, not expressly created. The participants don't inject story, but simply fictional content - it is the job of the mechanics that regulate those injections to make sure that the sequence of fictional content that is injected constitutes, in its totality, a story.(The contrast with 2nd ed AD&D can be seen failry clearly in this respect if one looks at pacing. 2nd ed AD&D urges the GM to keep a tight grip on pacing. In 4e the GM doesn't need to be so self-conscious about pacing - rather, the GM needs to skillfully deploy the encounter-build and resolution guidelines (including "say yes"), in which case pacing should take care of itself - and if it doesn't, that's a problem with the rules, which are meant to produce dramatic pacing emergently, rather than with the GM's own management of pacing.)I think this is too narrow given what RPGing actually involves, and has involved for 30+ years.The playing of the role isn't confined to the sort of pattern recognition you describe. It can also include adopting, for the purposes of play, the outlook of a particular character whose situation is dramatically charge and then responding, in play, to cues that engage that dramatic orientation. This is not mastering the code, but it's not thespianism or improvisational acting either, in the sense of putting on voices and emoting one's dialogue. It's recognising and giving voice to patterns concerning value (as found in the character, and the world put forward by the GM) and their conflicts (as seen in the collision of characters and world). In this sort of play tropes have a role not because of their contribution to story-telling, but because they are easy-recognised symbolic bearers of value (eg angels; dragons; elves; children etc).You account of the third (Gygaxian, classic D&D) style seems right to me.Your critical account of a certain style of 2nd ed or 3E play fits with my own experience, but I'm sure is likely to be contentious among the proponents of those editions.Your account of shared-narration games is fine as far as it goes, but for the reasons I've posted I think is not an accurate account of 4e (or other "story now") style RPGing, because it misses the key importance to that style - which is shared with Gygaxian play - of the player inhabiting a PC for the purposes of engaging with the gameworld. A nice treatment of the contrast between standard "story now" play and shared narration play is in <a href="http://isabout.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/the-pitfalls-of-narrative-technique-in-rpg-play/" target="_blank">this blog</a>.</blockquote>

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