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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 8232858" data-attributes="member: 85555">No, my point wasn't that. I do indeed also disagree with characterizing sandboxes and living worlds as playing to discover what's in the GM's notes. But my point was in response to labeling adventure paths and meta plot campaigns as playing to discover what's in the GM's notes. And it isn't a passive aggressive remark, I am being very clear and direct in what I mean. Calling it discovering GMs notes is a pejorative, it isn't a label that accurately reflects anything, it is a critique. And I know it is because I've used it myself to describe adventure paths when I had been critical of them. However it is also a very shallow critique, reflecting subjective bad experiences with the playstyle. I've mentioned many times in the early 2000s, I was pretty tired of the whole structure of adventures being based around a series of encounters with EL's designed to get a certain pace. And my remark was I felt, I might as well just hand my players my notes because that is all this feels like. That was an honest sincere reaction to how I felt at the time. But it wasn't an analysis. You can't take that subjective feeling that I was just waiting for players to discover what is in my notes, and use it to create principles for a good adventure path, because for people who like adventure paths, for people who play them and enjoy them, people who run them, that isn't really the point. The notes are a tool, they are not an end unto itself. And I've talked enough with people who run these kinds of games to get that there is more going on in them than that. I even have to acknowledge back when I felt that way, what I was describing was only one aspect of the game that frustrated me. There were still a lot of areas of play where it wasn't like that at all. In terms of my own biases, absolutely I have them. Everyone has biases. That is why I have been trying more and more to not characterize play styles that aren't mine, without first understanding them from within and how people who play them and like them see them. This is why I am asking you guys for mechanics all the time (and I will point out I almost never get a response in these threads when I ask for a useful narrative mechanic or scene framing mechanic to use in my own campaign). It is also why in the past six months I've bought tons of RPGS, including many that have been mentioned in these threads (like Blades in the Dark), during debates about playstyle. It is also why I've moved more and more away from things like definitional arguments (where to take things from the other point of view, people promoting my preferred playstyle often define RPGs strictly in order to exclude more story focused play).</blockquote>

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