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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9835645" data-attributes="member: 42582">Upthread, I posted quite a bit about some sorts of approaches to the setting-oriented RPGing that you describe:These posts advance a few theses:*Rules for representing elements of a shared fiction don't, in themselves, yield a playable RPG; *There also need to be rules for working out what it is that everyone is supposed to be imagining - rules for framing, and rules for consequences of actions (and these might be related rules); *Map-and-key is the primordial way of managing framing and (many) consequences - it builds on ideas from "hidden board", refereed wargaming; *Map-and-key is not the same as "GM as world-mediator" - extrapolation in dungeon-crawling map-and-key is tightly confined, and in many cases governed by rules (eg for dealing with doors; by rules for reactions and morale), whereas the "GM as world-mediator" approach confers upon the GM much more open-ended authority both to frame and to extrapolate as they think "makes sense".It doesn't follow that there must be "a story", or concern for "story*, in all RPGing. But the GM who authors their map-and-key is not disclaiming decision-making for the sorts of things that will happen in play: they have set them up. And the GM who engages in "world meditation" play cannot disclaim decision-making by appeals to "what makes sense" when this is their unconstrained judgement about the fiction that they have unilaterally authored and are unilaterally extrapolating.I don't think, in this post, I'm fully disagreeing with your ( [USER=6993955]@Fenris-77[/USER]'s) posts that I've quoted. But I'm not fully agreeing, either. A GM who uses the powers of extrapolation to produce something non-story-esque (eg no rising action; no theme; etc) is still making an aesthetic choice. I usually see that choice expressed using terms like "realism" or "verisimilitude" (although a lot of the play that results from this sort of approach doesn't strike me as particularly realistic or verisimilitudinous - it is extremely laden with tropes both from fiction and from received RPGing practice, "the adventuring party" probably being the most obvious in this latter category).</blockquote>

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