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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7344452" data-attributes="member: 16814">This isn't a useful description of play, though, except in narrow circumstance.  The key difference between the styles isn't that the DM reads notes in one (you read your notes when you introduce prepared fictions in play, for instance), it's that the distribution of narrative control -- in DM facing games, the DM retains most narrative control; in player-facing games, the players have some to many rights regarding narrative control.  I say some to many because the actual effect of player narrative control is not authorship of the narrative, but constraints on the DM's authorship of the narrative.  If a player declares "I search for the map" and succeeds, the DM is constrained that the next bit of narration they provide must accommodate that success and not negate it.  This is really, though, just a rules convention that enforces a manner of good play present in both styles:  if a check succeeds, the DM should not act against that check and narrate failure.  This is readily apparent in that most DMs will cite overriding check results with DM fiat to be bad play.   Of course it is.  If I control what's introduced into the shared fictions by my choices, then I have agency over the content of what is narrated.I believe that you're again failing to effectively make your argument by being unclear.  I believe your actual argument is that unless the player can introduce entirely new elements of the fiction through action declaration, they lack agency over the shared narrative.  I believe your argument is that "we go left, is the study there?" is different from "we go left and enter the study!"  And it is, but these kinds of declarations don't really exist in the same way in both styles.  They may exist in a DM facing game, where the decision as to which way to turn at an intersection is one of the many kinds of player choice offered, but neither would occur in a player-facing game that isn't being degenerate.  This is because the GM in a player facing game isn't going to frame a scene where such choices are made -- if something like this happens it's an error in framing and it will likely be glossed as 'say yes' because it's so unimportant; ie this isn't a choice that has any agency because it shouldn't be a choice at all.  Instead, the GM is going to 'go to the action' and frame the scene in the study to begin with.  This is the element I'm pointing at - the player-facing game wraps up all of the agency into the 'search for the map' declaration because that's the only real choice the players make in the scene -- everything else is provided by the GM (possibly according to notes prepped and found useful for this situation) as framing, framing that points straight at getting to this kind of declaration.  The GM isn't even offering the ability to choose which hall to turn down to find the study, so claiming you increase agency because the GM forces situations onto players that go straight to those declarations that stake objectives is being myopic -- it's intentionally ignoring that agency is lessened by the fact that the players have no way to avoid or mitigate circumstances prior to the frame where the big question is thrust upon them.In DM facing games, the players make many small choices over a longer period that lead up to the crux questions, and those crux questions can be repeated in multiple situations.  The scene the DM frames here isn't the study, it's the building that contains the study among other challenges.  How the players ultimately engage those challenges is up to them, and they still have the ability to go off map and introduce new states to the fiction that aren't in the DM's notes.  They can set the building on fire as well.You completely defeated your own argument by proving what I said.  The scene you describe opening with does not address the primary goal of play for the character involved.  That goal is saving his brother.  You didn't introduce a scene where saving the brother was at stake, and any declaration of 'I save my brother from possession by a balrog!' would not have the fictional positioning to succeed and would automatically fail.  Instead, you introduced a scene who's primary purpose was establishing a challenge that had to be overcome in order to move towards gaining the fictional positioning to save the brother.To contrast to the map in the study example, if you start that game with a scene having to bypass the guards stationed outside the building with the study in it, this is the same -- it's part of the GM's job to introduce challenges to obstruct the player's goals and provide interesting story.  The guards must be overcome to gain the fictional positioning (being in the study) to find the map.  A success with the guards may move the positioning to the study, or it may move to a new challenge -- you're now talking to the captain of the guards or the building's owner or whatever -- prior to achieving the necessary positioning.  This is how the game progresses, but this progression is inserted by the GM as needed to make the positioning difficult to obtain, else the game is too easy and the big questions are too quickly resolved.  Of course, successes will move rapidly towards the completion, but failures will cause additional complications and too many might cause possible outright failure of the objective.Well, one, congratulations on the strawman.  You separated that statement from the context and answered it in a way opposite it's context.  I wasn't talking about failure on the check to search for the map, I was talking about repeated failure in attempting to achieve the necessary positioning to even attempt that declaration.  A skill challenge in which the party accrues too many failures before necessary successes fails at their objective prior to being positioned to ultimately succeeed.  A player that searches for a mace may find evidence that his ultimate goal -- rescue his brother from possession -- fails because it's discovered his brother is a willing ally and not actually possessed against his will.  This is the failure I'm talking about.  And, in a DM-facing game, this can accrue by too many failures prior to obtaining positioning for success as well.  The party may be killed.  The party may run out of time.  The party may take actions that cause the map to be destroyed (setting the building on fire) or moved (alerting the enemy to the objective).  All of these things can happen in either style, and that was the point I was making.  As far as the point you've made, it depends on the situation.  If, in a player-facing game, you say when facing the guards outside the building prior to entering, "I search for the map", the GM has every right to negate this declaration as not appropriate for the current fictional positioning.  This is not different from the DM in a DM-facing game denying success when the fictional positioning is not right, either.  The only difference here is that the positioning contains a hidden element, but, just like an invisible opponent, that element is discoverable through play.If you're again discussing negation of a check, we're back to bad play examples that aren't useful in analyzing the difference in playstyles.  And, again, I say the difference in playstyles revolves around how challenges are presented -- player-facing challenges go straight to 'single big move' play while DM-facing challenges are more 'multiple small move' play.  The framework in which player decisions are made is different -- you don't have as many choices to make in player-facing games because the game drives straight to 'big question' moves.   You have many choices to make in DM-facing games, with many fewer being the 'big question' moves, and most of those occur outside of a concrete scene framing (ie, broader, higher level decisions).Then there's as much agency in choosing which way to go at an intersection as in finding a map?  The former is boring, and you don't want to exercise that kind of agency, the latter is something you care about and want to exercise agency over.  The difference here is one of preference, not agency, then.And that's great -- I fully understand that some people really prefer a style of play where everything is 'big decision' moves, the ones that really move the game along.  Other's prefer a game where small choices are often made and the frequency of big decision moves is lesser, but that doesn't necessarily mean that agency exercised by the players in these two styles is different.  This my point -- claiming that since your style of play focuses on big moves and so gives more agency fails to account that such questions still occur in DM-facing games, just mixed in with many more smaller moves.  You continue to compare a single declaration -- finding a map -- in each of the two styles as if they are the same kind of move in both.  They are not.  The framing is different.  The focus is different.  The outcomes of success and failure are different.  Therefore, you cannot compare the levels of agency available in the two styles by comparing different moves that have the same grammatical structure.I assure you that I have never once equivocated on the word fiction.  You're equivocating here that fictions that contain fictional characters and fictional events that are called stories exist but the fictional characters and fictional events do not.  This is ridiculous -- how can things that do not exist individually ever gain collective existence?I've sblocked the rest of this, as it may be boring to others.[sblock]What causal influence does the story (as opposed to a physical book that contains physical words that convey the ficitonal concepts of the story Hound of the Baskervilles) exert then that Sherlock Holmes, as a fiction character, cannot?  This argument is self-defeating.  Either fictional things do not exist or they do.  You cannot have a work of fiction, comprised of fictional elements, exist as a collective while denying that it's components have not existence.  This is logically impossible.To deny that Sherlock Holmes has existence because his is a fictional character, you must also deny that fictional stories that contain him also do not exist or you must identify exactly what it is extra in the fictional story that gives it existence.  What about Hound provides it existence while denying Sherlock his?</blockquote>

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