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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9844664" data-attributes="member: 42582">Part of the reason for doing things in accordance with instructions or structured processes is to produce results that aren't directly intended. An example that is a bit different from RPG play, but that (I think) vividly illustrates the point, is a production line in a factory. The engineer who conceived of the production line had in mind that it would produce whatever widgets it produces; but none of the builders of the components of the production line, let alone any of the workers on the line, need to intend the product of the widgets - each of them just intends to do their bits.Some RPGs are (at an appropriate level of abstraction) similar in their design: if the game participants adhere to their roles, as defined by the game rules and procedures, appropriately, and do what the rules and procedures tell them to do, then a story will result. Even though no participant directly intends its creation.And for the sake of clarity: by story here I don't just mean a sequence of imagined events. I mean a story in the sense of protagonists, conflict, rising action, climax etc. I would generally regard "narrative" and "story" as synonyms, at least in many contexts. Although in the context of RPGing, "narrative" also has an adjectival use - as in, pertaining to narration - that "story" doesn't.I don't think all RPGing produces a story in any sense beyond a series of imagined events. But some RPGing does. And RPGs can be designed - and some are - to ensure that this happens non-accidentally and reliably.As for "the fiction", I think that's fairly useful as a way of referring to the stuff that is imagined.</blockquote>

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