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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 7324487" data-attributes="member: 59082">Uh, sure, but you were referencing "classic D&D" in the original post. But no matter.I'm not just talking about this thread. But again, no matter. Instead, I'll reply to your question (which I kind of already did, but....no matter).No, it does not depend upon the GM doing it. It depends upon what you want to accomplish, as well as what the spoken and unspoken agreements are. Most campaigns I've played in or heard of have the agreement that the GM does the "behind scenes" production work, sets the stage, and the players act within it but don't do much "production" other than through character creation and, perhaps, coming up with their own backstory--usually within parameters given by the GM.There are, obviously, other ways to play, other agreements, other approaches.But let's look at the second question--that is, "can it also be achieved by the players doing it?" Yes, it can be achieved. But having the players do it has a rather different result than if the GM does it. I'm not saying it is a better or worse result, just different. And from my experience, the expectations and even desires of most players is that they do not have much say in building the world in which they interact. The general assumption I see most often is that players show up to interact in a world and story of the GM's design, or at least one that the GM has bought and read.I see a spectrum. On one side is a novel. You read the novel, which is pre-written with a singular story that the reader cannot diverge from. It is, in a sense, a complete "railroad" in that you (the reader) cannot change the course of the story. On the other side of the spectrum is a blank slate; you can to do whatever you want, sort of like Harold and his purple crayon (if you remember the children's book). Between the two poles are variations from choose-your-own-adventure, adventure paths, classic D&D modules, hex-crawls, etc. In a way it is how power is distributed among the participants. In a novel the author has complete power (although if you are a writer you might protest at this and say that sometimes the story just takes control and writes itself, but that's another discussion). In the tabula rasa approach, it is distributed equally among the participants (I think the RPG Universalis follows this model?).What I hear you advocating for continuously is an approach more towards tabula rasa than the vast majority of D&D players. Would you agree?And what I have seen you do continuously over years, time and time again, is pose different ways of subtly (or not so subtly) challenging the "main bloc" of D&D campaigns.Don't get me wrong: I see nothing wrong with that, just as I see nothing wrong with your approach. Viva la difference. Now would you agree that the "GM authority" and "co-creative player" approaches have different strengths and weaknesses, possibilities and limitations? And what if we use world-building as a context?I would argue that the GM authority approach to world building offers certain distinct advantages over the co-creative player approach (just as it may have certain disadvantages), and I'll use the novel analogy to illustrate. When I read a novel I don't want to know how it ends. I like the feeling that I am entering a story that is new and fresh, that I don't know about before hand. Furthermore, I am entering the imagination of another human being.On the other hand, when I am writing my own stories, I also often don't know how it is going to end - but I am within my own imaginative space, so I have some control in how it is formed and unfolds. I would argue that there is a kind of quasi-mystical quality to the imagination that i won't go into here, but only mention it because I don't think it is simply a matter of combining pre-existing parts in a mechanistic and rational process, but can almost be akin to "channeling." See, for instance, Coleridge's views on the imagination. But still, it is my imagination, my story, and unlike a novel that I'm reading, I can do whatever the blank I want with it.But when I join a campaign with the assumption of GM authority, I get to enjoy the pleasure of entering another's imagination; something another has created. I do have some authority in that world, but similar authority as you or I have in the real world: I cannot magically decide what is around that next corner in the road like in a lucid dream; it is already there, pre-made. You and I are interacting (presumably) with an already-existing environment. And that limitation creates a certain kind of dramatic tension.To be honest, I have never played in a co-creative RPG like you describe, but would love to give it a shot. But I have written a novel, and of course read many novels, so I imagine that the feeling of difference between co-creative playing and GM authority is somewhat similar to the difference between writing a novel (or co-writing a novel) and reading a novel. So the point of world-building, in this context, is similar to the point of creating a setting for a novel: it provides a context for story, and a space for the reader (or player) to explore and enjoy. And the key is that it is a truly Otherworld, unlike one's own imagination. Actually, I think we could argue that the sense of adventure requires at least a good amount of feeling of otherworldliness - that we are leaving the familiar, known, and even controlled, and venturing forth into territory that is alien to us. The point of world-building is to make that otherworldliness come alive, to be a living, unknown and uncertain context for the players to explore.</blockquote>

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