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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9087355" data-attributes="member: 42582">I would put it a bit differently.There is a type of human creative endeavour called storytelling. It includes certain elements which can be understood at least semi-technically: characters who have dramatic needs; rising action;  perhaps most importantly crisis or climax in which the question of whether the character will fulfil their dramatic need is posed and answered; and, as a result, resolution one way or another.The appeal of RPGing, for me at least, is that it enables the creation of stories with (i) no one having to be the storyteller, and (ii) the possibility of having the experience of "being" the character. This is a distinctive type of aesthetic experience.Key to achieving (ii) is to have PC build establish dramatic needs for those PCs. These are the player priorities that I have talked about in this thread. And I've said a bit about how various RPG systems permit players to express them (eg player-authored quests in 4e D&D).Key to achieving (i) is to have a system for framing, and for resolution, that will make dramatic need salient without anyone have to choose, in advance, what the resolution of those needs will look like. I've given examples, and explanation, that show how certain GMing principles can achieve this. (There are other RPGs with principles that are a bit different from what I've discussed that can also do this, most prominent Apocalypse World and some of its offshoots.)The alternative approach being set out in this thread, in which players play characters who are to a significant extent self-inserted lenses whereby they learn what the GM has in mind for the fiction, and prompt the GM to present and develop those ideas, is to me a quite different experience. It involves comparatively less creative engagement from the players. Their role is to provide characterisation for their PCs, and to unravel the "mystery" of the GM's world - to work out how it operates, what its various components are and how they related, etc. Players, in this approach, perform a role that is more cognitive than creative.</blockquote>

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