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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8227645" data-attributes="member: 42582">Suppose a player in my Traveller game tells me that their PC is listening to the morning news on the radio, and wants me to fill them in.There are two ways I can do this:* I can read off my pre-authored lists of events.

* I can make some stuff up that fits with the established fiction. Eg I might say that there is a report explaining that the ongoing depression on Tara continues to keep prices for industrial goods down at present, whilst driving migration away from that world, leading to speculation that prices for goods might soon increase. If a subsequent random roll (for a ship encounter, or on the trade table whether for purchase or for resale) produces a result that seems to fit with that prior narration, I can establish the connection in my narration to the players.In neither case is the fiction more real. In both cases it is part of the shared fiction, and in both cases it is pure imagination. The world of Tara and the intergalactic trade routes that it lies on do not exist.It seems, though, that one function of GM notes is to generate in some RPG participants a sense that the fiction is &quot;real&quot; rather than authored. I suspect this works by occluding the fact of authorship, which occurred in the past with the players not present.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8227645, member: 42582"] Suppose a player in my Traveller game tells me that their PC is listening to the morning news on the radio, and wants me to fill them in. There are two ways I can do this: [indent]* I can read off my pre-authored lists of events. * I can make some stuff up that fits with the established fiction. Eg I might say that there is a report explaining that the ongoing depression on Tara continues to keep prices for industrial goods down at present, whilst driving migration away from that world, leading to speculation that prices for goods might soon increase. If a subsequent random roll (for a ship encounter, or on the trade table whether for purchase or for resale) produces a result that seems to fit with that prior narration, I can establish the connection in my narration to the players.[/indent] In neither case is the fiction [I]more real[/I]. In both cases it is part of the shared fiction, and in both cases it is pure imagination. The world of Tara and the intergalactic trade routes that it lies on do not exist. It seems, though, that one function of GM notes is to generate [I]in some RPG participants [/I]a sense that the fiction is "real" rather than authored. I suspect this works by occluding the fact of authorship, which occurred in the past with the players not present. [/QUOTE]

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