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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7344921" data-attributes="member: 42582">Yes. This isn't a difference in the fiction - it's a difference in the real world! You are not an author of Hound of the Baskervilles. You are one of the authors when you play RPGs. If you were playing Holmes as your PC, then you would author his reply to Watson. Just as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was free to author Holmes's reply as the fancy took him.Look at it another way - if some future archaeologist were to discover a manuscript of The Hound of the Baskervilles, simply from reading it s/he wouldn't be able to tell who wrote it, or by what process. Was it written by a committee? A single person? Is it in fact a retelling of a RPG episode? These different possibilities are to do with real world processes of authorship - they have nothing to do with the "agency" of Holmes, or Watson, as a character within the fiction."I try to hit him with my sword" is a move in the game. It's a move that is declared in the real world, at the table. Declaring the move also establishes something in the fiction (at a minimum, that the PC desires to hit the opponent with his/her sword; at most tables, probably also that the PC is performing physical movements of a sword-fighting nature).Declaring the move also signals a desire as to the future state of the fiction, namely, the defeat of the opponent by the PC by means of swordfighting.At most tables, Sir Bargle swings became an element of the fiction when the player made the action declaration, and so didn't depend on eg the roll of any dice. (I think [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] is an exception to this, but I'm also pretty confident that his is a minority view.)As I posted not too far upthread, the resolution mechanics mediate between the players' expressed desire as to the future state of the fiction -ie that his/her PC defeat the opponent by use of a sword - and the actual formation of a consensus, at the table, as to whether or not that desired fiction actually becomes part of the shared fiction.This is why it is possible to collectively generate a shared fiction without engaging in collaborative storytelling - because the process can be mediated by way of action declarations and resolution.Also, at the current level of description of these processes, there is nothing that makes "I try to hit him with my sword" any different from "I search the study for the map we've been looking for."Well, that's the whole focus of this thread, isn't it.</blockquote>

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