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<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8234378" data-attributes="member: 16814">Yes!&nbsp; Protagonism occurs when play is about the PCs dramatic needs.&nbsp; If I've built my world prior to the PC generation, then I'm not protagonizing the PCs in that world -- I'm building a world that doesn't care about the PCs' dramatic needs.&nbsp; That the player can, within that world, try to make moves that invoke their dramatic need doesn't change that the world is not a protagonistic world.&nbsp; What this is is agency -- the ability to make choices that matter.&nbsp; This isn't the same as protagonism, which is about how the entire game is structured and what it focuses on.After this big point, which I hope we can agree on, there's lots of details about how play is generated even when nominally involving a PC dramatic need.&nbsp; Again, the key element here is focus.&nbsp; A good detail here is my example tiefling from my game -- that she will, undoubtedly, seek out the devil responsible for her family's curse, how that fiction is generated is key to evoking protagonism.&nbsp; For example, it's absolutely true that this devil exists in my game and will be a factor in it solely because of the PC's dramatic need.&nbsp; However, the adventure then only has a small amount of protagonism because it will still be almost entirely about foiling the NPC's plan which was conceived without any of the PCs in my game being created.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 8234378, member: 16814"] Yes! Protagonism occurs when play is about the PCs dramatic needs. If I've built my world prior to the PC generation, then I'm not protagonizing the PCs in that world -- I'm building a world that doesn't care about the PCs' dramatic needs. That the player can, within that world, try to make moves that invoke their dramatic need doesn't change that the world is not a protagonistic world. What this is is agency -- the ability to make choices that matter. This isn't the same as protagonism, which is about how the entire game is structured and what it focuses on. After this big point, which I hope we can agree on, there's lots of details about how play is generated even when nominally involving a PC dramatic need. Again, the key element here is focus. A good detail here is my example tiefling from my game -- that she will, undoubtedly, seek out the devil responsible for her family's curse, how that fiction is generated is key to evoking protagonism. For example, it's absolutely true that this devil exists in my game and will be a factor in it solely because of the PC's dramatic need. However, the adventure then only has a small amount of protagonism because it will still be almost entirely about foiling the NPC's plan which was conceived without any of the PCs in my game being created. [/QUOTE]

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