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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7345397" data-attributes="member: 16814">Let me help you out then:  I disagree with that assessment because it's not an accurate description of the playstyle.  While it does have some validity with some examples, and definitely the map examples commonly used, it doesn't account for those times where the DM has no notes to cover the actions of the players.  And that's me sticking to the most extreme example of play that uses secret backstory; it's not even close to mine where notes are used for framing mainly.Exploration provides new scenes that need to be framed, they are not the goal of play but a new area for new challenges.  When my players elect to explore eastward, for example, they find the foothills for the mountains the can already see.  In those foothills they will find new challenges.  The result of the exploration is me framing the scene for a challenge.  The goal is to find the new challenge, not to get me to read my notes to them.Only in the extreme case the DM has written they can or cannot be bribed.  If I did that, for instance, then I would foreshadow that fact prior to the question coming up, as in "the gate is guarded by Bob the Guard, and you, Bob the Rogue, know from your underground contacts (established by Bob the Rogue at character creation or during play) that Bob the Guard is generally held to be unbribable.  He is, however, known to be rather dim."So, for me, a DM who uses heavy prep, the goal of play here would never be for the players to declare actions to find out my notes on bribing the guards, they'd either already be told in framing what to expect or they could try and I'll let the mechanics determine things.Why can't they?  Let's assume the case where the DM has notes that say the map is in the kitchen.  The players don't know this, and so they have hope that they can find the map.  This is negated, yes, but that doesn't negate the map as an objective of play, it just says that the fictional positioning is not yet right and they need to try again elsewhere.  This isn't all that dissimilar to having to get past the guards before having a chance to search for the map.  Again, broader play where agency is spread out vs narrower play where every scene focuses on the maximum agency moves.Not the most convincing argument.That your literal description is neither literal nor a very valid description except of some aspects of that play.  Again, you insist on evaluating the play from your perspective using a different paradigm and miss the other facets of play that exist that do not exist in your paradigm of play.Dear god, you're so close to seeing my point but you still shy away from it.  I'll try again:  what makes the second declaration a non-sequitur?  Answer:  it doesn't follow the existing fiction!  The fiction that comes before, ie the description of the scene, places hard constraints on the fiction that can be authored after.  The fiction exists.Yes, adding additional conjecture is not what I have in mind.  You may feel free to assume this is the case at all times.Nothing you say here actually contradicts what I said that you called tortuous.  Which is what I said using terms that encompass the style of play in more than just BW.I understand that you think that you can argue for [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], and that you can use [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s arguments, but I'm not arguing with [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] here -- he plays how he plays and [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] (no offense Lan) is not the definition of an entire style of play.  That his style is followed by some doesn't mean that it's definitive.  In other words, confine your discussion of how [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] plays with the only expert on how [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] plays on the board:  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION].  I have said multiple times I run in the "hidden backstory" style and I clearly say I do not ask for rolls unless the outcome is uncertain and there is a chance of failure.  If you look in a location for a non-existent map, the narration is a straight 'you don't find a map' without a roll.  Since there is clear deviation in the playstyle right here -- between your characterization of [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s play and my characterization of my play -- then it's clear that your assumption of how that style of play works is flawed.  Can you accept that?I'm honestly at a loss that you think that playing in a hidden backstory game means that all things are set in stone and immutable just as in a book.  It's nearly insulting that you actually believe that most DMs play in a way that is actually comparable to flipping through a book.  This isn't even true of your favorite example of this style [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], who runs a game full of meaningful choices that affect the entire game in ways that are not in his notes and has provided clear examples of such numerous times in this very thread.Whatever you may think, this example is so horribly flawed in describing anything except the most agonizing total railroad (a style of game despised by almost everyone) that it's insulting to anyone you're talking to about this -- including yourself.Those things should be apparent in framing, in which case they're not secret backstory.  If the DM is engaged in post hoc additions to prevent player actions from occuring, the DM is engaged in bad play, no matter what style is being discussed.Please, take this concept and understand it, because it's a serious roadblock to understanding and reflects poorly on you.  Unless you intend to be dismissive and insulting to those that don't play as you do?Yes, if that is how play unfolds it would be a question to see what they GM will narrate, and that narration may well be from notes.  But that's not where the agency is, as I've told you repeatedly.  You're evaluating that statement from the lens that player declarations should be about resolving a crisis -- if it's not a crisis then it's something to be glossed and agreed and moved to crisis.  But, the DM-facing style of play move more broadly and includes actions that aren't addressing crisis in every scene.  The choice to go to this room to search instead of the other room to search is agency if it comes at a cost, regardless of outcome.  If there's a time limit, or chance of guards appearing, then the choice to move to this room and search has a consequence, and therefor agency as the players spend a limited resource (in this case time or danger) to achieve a goal.  It's a small agency, at this point, and a well constructed game will have ways to eliminate choices and select better ones to maximize the use of that resource, but agency in these games is rarely large at the resolution of action you're highlighting.  A fact which skews well towards your argument about there being more agency in your style for player declarations.  This is true, because the only declarations that matter in that style are ones that address crisis.  That crisis is pushed onto the players by the GM framing.  In DM-facing games, crisis occurs as well and player declarations resolve it, but the crisis comes from a series of choices by players at a lower level of agency -- ie, which room to search -- and isn't present in each declaration.Chess vs checkers, man.This would only be true if there weren't more game off of the map.I have lots of game off of any given map.In that case, the ability to leave a challenge is agency.  It has consequence.  You don't get those rewards and must instead do something else.I do not, as "choose-your-own-adventure style action declaration is your terminology and I reject both that analysis and that term.And, I do not, and never said anything of the kind.  What I said was that the players lose agency by having the GM force them into crisis of the GM's choosing.  That the GM references the notes on their characters before doing so doesn't mean the players suddenly have agency at being framed into a crisis of the GM's choosing.This is a semantic argument, where you complain that the words I use that mean the same thing aren't the words you'd use.  The player expressing a desire to introduce new fiction that is actually introduced when agreed to by the GM or when the dice indicate success of that introduction isn't a different thing that the player being able to introduce new fiction through action declaration.  Also, your phrasing fails to account for the fiat introduction of Jabal of the Cabal as part of an action declaration that is accepted regardless of the outcome of the mechanics, an act you've pointed out as being part of the expected results of player-facing game styles.  You can't have it all ways, you know.Again, you try to introduce new elements that support you.  The argument has focused on finding the map.  I was clear that the map was the current objective of play.  I was precise in this because I know you love to add additional details to change the state of the situation and then explain away at the new state.Where do you get your framing?  I don't know, it's largely unimportant.  You can make it up on the spot.  You can use things that tie it to your characters for future links and challenges, you can read your notes that you prepped and are still useful.  What does it matter?  Yes, I believe I've been rather upfront that player-facing style games allow the GM to narrate failure in many different ways, and this is an example of narration of failure.  It's not in dispute, and it doesn't address anything I said.Not in my games, they aren't.  The guards arriving are a check made by me based on the events ongoing -- make a lot of noise, check gets a plus.  Quiet, check gets a minus.  Near the guard post?  Plus.  Crawling through airducts?  Minus.  These things are all susceptible to  player declarations -- not a fixed list because I cannot (and don't) anticipate what players might do.  But it's still a mechanical check based on clearly stated issues, "hey, that thunderwave spell you just cast sure was really loud, the guards probably heard it' <clatter> "you're sure of it, as you hear yells for help and the stop of hard boots running in your direction."You can't sweep everything you want into the bin of 'DM stipulation' while claiming that you use the random generation rules of Traveller and that's a great example of not stipulating things.  You keep wanting this both ways, and also keep trying to shove an entire playstyle into a box it doesn't fit in.You should consider stopping and listening for a bit instead.Right -- the GOAL was to free his brother, the SCENE was about determining if this feather was any good at that.  The player could not save his brother in that scene as he had not yet achieved the correct fictional positioning to do that.  Instead, he was addressing a challenge you presented that had to be overcome in order to move closer to the correct fictional positioning to achieve his GOAL of saving his brother.That you lifted the opening scene from other player information doesn't actually change this -- in fact, the system you're discussing encourages players to create their own complications that prevent moving to the fictional positioning necessary to achieve their goals.I said this above and you disagreed.And "action" is not the same as "a scene where I have the fictional positioning to accomplish my goal".  It's just, action, ie, a crisis the players have to engage.Nothing you've said in this post contradicts what I said, though, you've just spun off into a lot of semantic spirals that say the same things using different words while pretending the outcome is actually different.Tastes vary, surely we're not arguing that?Well, considering none of my arguments were about how you might earn XP in any given system, I'm not sure how this refutes or addresses anything I've said.  The goal of play is shifted by how XP awards, but the style of play seems to be within the descriptions I've provided regardless.Descriptions that aren't demeaning or dismissive of the style of play, mind.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with defining agency as the ability to introduce new fiction through action declarations -- nothing dismissive or insulting or bad either implicitly or explicitly.  It's a useful touchstone to understand the core difference in play:  player-facing games allow more of this kind of play while DM-facing games restrict that kind of play.  This whole thing you have about notes, while worth discussing, isn't the actual difference in playstyles.But they are -- if the DM is constrained to provide situations that revolve around these player introduced concepts and then the player declarations introduce new fictions that are allow either by DM fiat agreement or a success on a mechanical test (and even possibly on a failure, depending on how the DM narrates the failure) which then binds the DM to accept this new fiction, then the players are exerting direct narrative control.  Their actions lead to new fiction according to their actions.I think this is place where you do care about some precise semantic definition.  It's so odd that you publicly declare you don't care about semantics and then keep making these precise semantic arguments.</blockquote>

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