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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7357636" data-attributes="member: 82106">Framing backstory establishes factors which draw a scene that addresses player concerns and 'gets to the action'. Well, there are a couple of things to point out here. First it REALLY depends on the agenda of the players. Secondly the bribeability of the guards appears to be SECRET. Think of a wall in a dungeon, you can see it, you can touch it, you know all about what it is. The wall cuts off motion in a certain direction in the dungeon, and the unbribeable guard cuts off certain actions too, but without telegraphing that to the players. This may or may not be an issue depending on the first point, agenda.I think you need to understand Story Now more deeply. The scene is framed IN RESPECT TO THE PLAYER'S AGENDA, so if the players decide that they wish to engage in bribery and other kinds of skullduggery then unbribeable guards may well be an infringement on their agenda and it simply wouldn't be established as such in a Story Now player-centered game, doing so would be a mistake. Guards would be established, probably, in order to present a CHALLENGE to the characters such that the players must address the questions at hand, which is "we're shady guys who bribe people" (or maybe not, maybe your character is a Paladin and the question is about sticking to your principles regardless of the cost and NOT bribing the guards, then the GM might frame a SOLICITATION of a bribe). Notice how pre-established backstory would work against this kind of agenda. It might be fine to call the guards 'unbribeable' if this suites the framing and leads to the right conflict, but you won't know until you get there. This is why its Story Now. Walls and guards and such ONLY APPEAR when they serve the agenda of the game, and then they have the characteristics that are requisite of them (otherwise they might simply appear as simple props).Player agency probably always IS limited by framing. This is the PURPOSE of framing. Without any limits there's no challenge to overcome, no conflict, no tension, no stakes, nothing. Nobody is arguing that there are no limits on player agency (at least with respect to what the characters can do, in a group-authored game the player might not ACTUALLY be limited formally except by the need to cooperate with the other players to make a good game). What is argued is that the game should always address the player's AGENDA. If a player wishes to have a character who's concept is "My father always said I wasn't good enough, so I'm going to rule the world in order to prove him wrong!" then the focus of things which that player does with that character, his character's narrative, is going to be about that need, that drive, the consequences of it, the nature of it, how it impacts and shapes his character, the world, etc. Maybe he spends his time working towards world domination and the challenges are the obvious obstacles to that. Maybe some of it, or most of it even, is about the moral cost of such an undertaking. How much does he have to compromise himself as a human being in order to achieve his goal? It might be about the ultimate hollowness of such an achievement and his growth and realization that it is empty and won't make him happy. There's plenty of possibilities even within a fairly narrow character definition. How this character interacts with the other characters, the nature of the milieu, etc. may all influence exactly what ends up being addressed. Standard Narrativist concepts just imply that it WILL be the central focus of that character's narrative.Again, limitations aren't really the issue. The issue is what is the agenda of the game? When [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] talks about "moves which reveal the GM's secret backstory" what that really says is "the GM introduces elements of the story that address the GM's agenda." This is, in Story Now terms, simply definitional, as the player's agenda is established dynamically by engaging with the framing of the scenes, character backstory, etc. When the GM dictates backstory for purposes that are other than player agenda, that reduces player agency over the narrative, because it addresses GM agency over the narrative and thus GM agenda. Maybe the two are in harmony sometimes and the player and the GM both get what they want out of the scene. I think this usually happens to some degree in all but dysfunctional cases. The point is, frames always create limitations, but in a player-centered game the players are the center and the limitations are there to further their agenda.</blockquote>

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