Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8234101" data-attributes="member: 16814">I'll try this again, but it's been well covered.  A protagonist has dramatic needs -- the story featuring a protagonist revolves around the protagonist's drama, not other characters' drama.  When a PC in a game meets a dragon, say, and the GM has already planned out what the dragon's needs and wants are, and what it's doing in the story, then this is divorced from the protagonists needs.  Sure, the PC can make choices about what to do about the dragon, and this is the core of a good game, but the locus of the dramatic need here is on the dragon -- the PC is reacting to what the dragon is about and wants, and then deciding what the PC wants to do with regard to the dragon.  To put it another way, this situation starts with the GM, and (maybe) ends with the PC.  The maybe is there because the player may decide to do something else, in which case the GM will usually play out what they imagined the dragons does, thereby both starting and ending that thread with the GM.If the game is centered in protagonism, then it would start with the PC -- the only way there'd be a dragon is if it directly ties to the PC's dramatic needs, like say if a PC was created with the goal to be a noted dragon-slayer, then the dragon is in the game because the PC needs a dragon to slay, not for any other reasons.  The player inserts this dragon because it has to be there to deliver on the PC's dramatic need.  Then play will focus on the PC's quest to slay a dragon, and not on what the dragon may want.  Complications will accrue here through play -- most systems that support this play generate complication through the mechanics, thereby charging the situation and discovering what happens on the PC's quest -- not just does the PC slay a dragon, but what the dragon is doing that counters the PC's need, and if, indeed, the PC even succeeds at there need -- note this may be stopping the dragon but failing the need.  Here, the play starts with the PC, but may end with the GM due to failure.I'm not using a single qualifier.  Protagonism is, quite literally, about protagonists.  And protagonists are the center of a story -- the story focuses on that character(s) dramatic need(s).  There's nothing twisted here, no redefinitions.  It's straightfoward.  Instead, what I see is a confusion with letting players make choices about what they do, which is not the same thing.  That's agency.</blockquote>

Verification