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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8235617" data-attributes="member: 42582">These three quoted passages were posted as part of a discussion about satisfying PC dramatic needs in the context of sandbox play. I'm trying to make sense of them. I'm not 100% sure that I have, yet.I'll keep running with the pitfighter example.The GM implicitly or expressly invites the player to state a dramatic need for his/her PC. The player says I am - or I will be - the best pit fighter in the realm. The GM then either, based on notes, (1) tells the player where the PC is from; or the GM, extrapolating from notes, (2) says "You could be from here, or here, or here - whaddya think?"; or the GM, extrapolating from notes, (3) says "Sorry, there are no pitfighters in this world".I'm still not clear how (2) is different from asking questions and building on the answers. The GM has asked a question - what's your dramatic need? And has got a reply, and then built on that with a further question - whaddya think about being from here, or here, or here? And then based on that answer, it is now established that either here, or here, or here, pitfighters are to be found.If what happens is (1) or (3) instead, then we don't have asking questions and building on the answers. We have GM world building, and in a sense it is "coincidence" that the players PC idea does, or doesn't, fit into that. To the extent that it's not really coincidence because the GM has built the world having regard to anticipated and desired PC dramatic needs, then we seem to have an attempt to produce the same sort of outcome as asking questions and building on the answers but via anticipation rather than actual exchange. A variation would be moving the asking of questions and building on the answers to "session zero" rather than doing it during play.To me, this sounds like adding to or building on the GM's notes during play. The difference from asking questions and building on the answers seems to be that only the GM gets to reflect on the fiction so far and extrapolate to new fiction.As some posters have said (eg [USER=23751]@Maxperson[/USER], [USER=6698278]@Emerikol[/USER]) they prefer to engage with fiction in this fashion. Rather than contributing directly to it themselves. And as [USER=6785785]@hawkeyefan[/USER] has said, this seems to be an example of the players learning either (i) what is already in the GM's notes, or (ii) what the GM is extrapolating to and (literally or figuratively) adding to his/her notes.</blockquote>

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