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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9087379" data-attributes="member: 71699">Nicely articulated. I've been attempting to advance some related theory and this is roughly where I am at present.1. At least two human creative drives find expression in TTRPG - storytelling and exploration.2. Players engage with these drives in a ludic-duality - at once audience and author. This ludic-duality makes experiencing content in the form of game distinct from experiencing similar content in other mediums.3. Norms of play have formed around weightings of the duality - either more toward audience, or more toward author. This is only weight, neither is absent.So to consider some pairingsi) Storytelling=audience. This mode maps to forms of trad play that prioritise a satisfying story. Players are pre-destined protagonists in a story told by game designers and/or GM. Perhaps it is the most naturally obvious mode (to engage with games in ways familiar from other media.)Ii) Storytelling=author. This mode maps to what you have described. Participants collaborate to create their story through play; it emerges in a dramatic situation presented by game designers and/or GM.iii) Exploration=audience. This mode maps to forms of trad play in which players explore content prepared by game designers and/or GM.iv) Exploration=author. This mode maps to forms of sim play that leverage the collective genius of participants and irrealities of subject. Participants collaborate to investigate subject through play, typically one nominated by and with tools provided by game designers and/or GM.I'm reminded of the lean-back / lean-forward dichotomy of video / games. One is receptive - let me experience something - the other is active - let me make something happen. These preferences can move around the table and change over time. In a similar vein, no one is assumed to do pure storytelling or pure exploring: the two are mixed in varying degrees.Finally, there are techniques connected with the specific properties of TTRPG that can serve any pairing. Such asa) Fiction-first. TTRPG is distinct from other games in heavily committting to a fiction state (along with a system state.) Fiction-first most importantly observes the continuous flow of momentum back and forth between them.b) Internal-cause. In fictional realities, extrapolating from world laws strengthens immersion (and avoids jarring disjunctions.)There are others, but I felt those two worth listing provocatively in just this way. Related to the thread topic, I think what counts as ideal player agency shifts according to the preferences outlined above as pairings (actually a continuum).</blockquote>

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