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<blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 7350337" data-attributes="member: 6785785">Sure, that sounds like reasonable advice. I agree with most of what you say here. I was not saying that GM driven play doesn't rely heavily on the GM. I just don't think it must mean an absence of player agency. I think that for the most obvious example of D&amp;D, yes, player agency is not present in the sense of authoring things into the fiction through action declaration. Players cannot author the presence of an object by declaring that their character searches for said object. But does that mean that player agency is therefore absent from the game? Of course not. I don't mind flaws being pointed out about a particular style. I'm willing to point them out myself. It's just when none are seen on the other side...that gets a bit frustrating. The first part here is all I am really trying to say. There can be strengths in GM centered play. And I also like your reference to play being a continuum. I feel that I use methods of both player driven and GM driven play, depending on what it is we're trying to do, and what aspects of the game are involved. The fact that some games don't leverage those strengths may indeed be true. But then that's a matter of preference and what one's desired goal is for play. For someone playing a very Gygaxian kind of &quot;classic&quot; D&amp;D, I doubt that they see the lack of leverage for player input on the fiction beyond advocating and acting for their character all that much. Right. This is what I mean by GM performance being the issue. If the GM and the players want a different kind of experience than the default, then they need to do things differently. If they decide at the start of a D&amp;D 5E game that the elements of the story are going to be based on what the players bring to the table during character generation, then yes, the DM needs to incorporate those ideas into the game.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="hawkeyefan, post: 7350337, member: 6785785"] Sure, that sounds like reasonable advice. I agree with most of what you say here. I was not saying that GM driven play doesn't rely heavily on the GM. I just don't think it must mean an absence of player agency. I think that for the most obvious example of D&D, yes, player agency is not present in the sense of authoring things into the fiction through action declaration. Players cannot author the presence of an object by declaring that their character searches for said object. But does that mean that player agency is therefore absent from the game? Of course not. I don't mind flaws being pointed out about a particular style. I'm willing to point them out myself. It's just when none are seen on the other side...that gets a bit frustrating. The first part here is all I am really trying to say. There can be strengths in GM centered play. And I also like your reference to play being a continuum. I feel that I use methods of both player driven and GM driven play, depending on what it is we're trying to do, and what aspects of the game are involved. The fact that some games don't leverage those strengths may indeed be true. But then that's a matter of preference and what one's desired goal is for play. For someone playing a very Gygaxian kind of "classic" D&D, I doubt that they see the lack of leverage for player input on the fiction beyond advocating and acting for their character all that much. Right. This is what I mean by GM performance being the issue. If the GM and the players want a different kind of experience than the default, then they need to do things differently. If they decide at the start of a D&D 5E game that the elements of the story are going to be based on what the players bring to the table during character generation, then yes, the DM needs to incorporate those ideas into the game. [/QUOTE]

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