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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7598838" data-attributes="member: 42582">I follow, but actually am now a bit more puzzled (not by you - by the overall logic of the situation) because of the post of Elfcrusher's that I've posted. (The emphasis is original, though I've changed it from italics to underlining so as to maintain it in the quote format.) And maybe &quot;intrigued&quot; would be a better word than &quot;puzzled&quot; - I'm not sure, but will post on.Judging that an approach would work very clearly requires a robust sense of a not-too-mutable fiction. But (as you say) the player is permitted to exploit the mutability of fiction to make sense of his/her play of the character.For this to work requires - I think - very clear boundaries around what is mutable in the hands of the player, and what the GM is permitted to rigdily establish in advance of adjudicating the &quot;woulds&quot; and &quot;coulds&quot;.I think that (eg)&nbsp;&nbsp; [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s use of fortune very close to the framing, and postponing nearly all of the narration to afterwards, might be one way of trying to manage (by trying to avoid) this need for boundaries.EDIT: I saw this just after posting:Presumably if the player disagrees, in the context of disarming a trap, about what would work because even one's grandmother could do it without trouble, the GM is expected to have the last word.But in the PC backstory case, and the action declaration case (My INT 6 barbarian does such-and-such) which the PC backstory is meant to be ancilliary to, the GM having the last word is flagged as a possible source of problems.This illustrates what I mean by the need for clear boundaries over who has what sort of authority over which bits of the shared fiction. I'm not suggesting it's going to be tricky in every case, but I think maybe it might be tricky in some cases.I don't think &quot;trust&quot; is the right notion, because in the context of Gord the Barbarian's backstory and action declaration you don't call on the player to trust the GM.I think what is at issue here is the distribution of authority over establishing the fiction.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7598838, member: 42582"] I follow, but actually am now a bit more puzzled (not by you - by the overall logic of the situation) because of the post of Elfcrusher's that I've posted. (The emphasis is original, though I've changed it from italics to underlining so as to maintain it in the quote format.) And maybe "intrigued" would be a better word than "puzzled" - I'm not sure, but will post on. Judging that an approach [I]would[/I] work very clearly requires a robust sense of a not-too-mutable fiction. But (as you say) the player is permitted to exploit the mutability of fiction to make sense of his/her play of the character. For this to work requires - I think - very clear boundaries around what is mutable in the hands of the player, and what the GM is permitted to rigdily establish in advance of adjudicating the "woulds" and "coulds". I think that (eg) [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s use of fortune very close to the framing, and postponing nearly all of the narration to afterwards, might be one way of trying to manage (by trying to avoid) this need for boundaries. EDIT: I saw this just after posting: Presumably if the player disagrees, in the context of disarming a trap, about what [I]would[/I] work because even one's grandmother could do it without trouble, the GM is expected to have the last word. But in the PC backstory case, and the action declaration case ([I]My INT 6 barbarian does such-and-such[/I]) which the PC backstory is meant to be ancilliary to, the GM having the last word is flagged as a possible source of problems. This illustrates what I mean by the need for clear boundaries over who has what sort of authority over which bits of the shared fiction. I'm not suggesting it's going to be tricky in every case, but I think maybe it might be tricky in some cases. I don't think "trust" is the right notion, because in the context of Gord the Barbarian's backstory and action declaration you don't call on the player to trust the GM. I think what is at issue here is the distribution of authority over establishing the fiction. [/QUOTE]

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