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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7333046" data-attributes="member: 42582">To me, that seems very Gygaxian. In his rules for evasion of dungeon encounters, the first step is to check what the GM's notes say.If the PCs are defeated by the monsters, and the players come back with new PCs - or if the same PCs who escaped/were driven off return - do you stick to the same patterns of behaviour? That seems important for the players to be actually able to learn and so improve their play.Hard question?In broad terms, I think there are at least four, or mabye three-and-a-half (some of this thread might be about whether that half is really a whole!).I see Gygaxian dungeoneering/skilled play as a key style. Even if it's less common now (which I still believe it is), it's pretty foundational for D&D, and explains where so many of the rules and received methods come from.Then there is what I think of as 2nd ed-style play, with very heavy GM control over the fiction and resolution (Gyagx said that fudging an encounter is contrary to the major precepts of the game; 2nd ed encourages it "for the good of the story"). I see the PF AP style as a descendant of this style. CoC is my favourite RPG to play in this style (with an evocative GM, and in modest doses).Then there is the "indie"/"no myth" style I like. There are variations in this style - eg I tend towards rather strongly scene-framed approaches, whereas eg Dungeon World is a bit structurally looser than that, with the GM decision-making a bit more on the micro-/granular rather than "big picture" side of things. But for the current thread these differences can be glossed over, I think.Then the "half-style": the one that is Gygaxian in some ways (pre-authored setting, but no fudging) but which has a scope and an approach that therefore makes player learning (through repeat attempts, use of divination resources, etc) hard; and makes the GM's role in choosing what to foreground about the setting much more important than the player's less mediated, more direct engagement with the dungeon map and the dungeon key. I think this is where you and [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] probably fall (in terms of this thread - I'm not saying this is who you are as RPGers).I'll go this far in this post: I think this fourth style can tend to slip into a version of the 2nd ed style.Now just like there are variants in the "indie"-style, there are variants in that 2nd style. I'm running them together because the difference don't loom large for me (given my conception of player agency). Eg in a PF AP the players may be literally on a railroad (first encounter A, then encounter B, then C, etc). Whereas in some others that I'm putting into this category, the players can choose whether they go to A or B or C. From my point of view, though, the choice of A or B or C - if it is still a choice among things to be told by the GM - still makes the game a GM-driven one. The players just trigger which bit of his/her pre-written stuff the GM tells them.I think the fourth style can tend to slip into the "choose A or B or C" version of the second style. Without the clear structure for learning and "winning" that is there in the dungeon style, it can turn into "trigger the GM telling me stuff".</blockquote>

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