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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7360719" data-attributes="member: 42582">If you decide something ahead of time, and it has not been revealed to the players, and they then delcare an action to which this unrevealed fictional positioning is relevant, how can it not affect their agency?Also, if you decide this thing ahead of time, and it actually comes to matter in play, then how does that also count as an exercise of GM rather than player agency over the content of the shared fiction?These questions are not rhetorical. If I am wrong, then you have in mind something that I haven't succeeded in grasping- because it looks like GM-authored setting that doesn't affect action resolution and doesn't contribute to the fiction that is the focus of play. But that just doesn't seem right.But it affects action resolution, in ways the players aren't aware of, and in ways that reflects the GM's prior conception of the fiction.Framing doesn't do that.I mean, isn't this a descrition of a limit on the ability of the players to exercise agency over the content of the shared fiction, based on the GM's conception of what the fiction should be? If not, what is it?My response to this is the same as to [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] upthread - any time the GM says "You find yourself in situation XYZ" the description of XYZ in some fashion limits options. I'm taking that to be a given for any mainstream RPG. But there is nothing distinctive about the "standard narrativistic model" in this respect.You seem to be suggesting that there is something distinctive, though. But I've not grasped what you think that is.As far as the side quest is concerned, I don't get what you are saying. First, I don't know what you mean by "side quest" - it's not a notion that has any purchase in player-driven RPGing, because it rests on a contrast with the "real" or "main" quest that only operates in GM-driven games.But second, the player can declare whatever action s/he wants. If the GM frames the PC into the bazaar, and the player decides that angel feathers are of no interest, the player can declare whatever action s/he wants to (and that respects the fictional positioning of the PC). Again, you seem to be envisaging some aspect or dynamic of play here that I'm simply not seeing (eg some sort of GM veto over action declarations).OK, so which game have you got in mind in envisaging that if the players try to engage with the "sidequest" the GM will veto that action declaration and force them to do something else (the main quest?)? Or that involves the GM, as part of the framing, saying "You're not allowed to bribe this guard" or "You're not allowed to fight this monster"?As I said, I don't know any - that's why I'm asking what you have in mind.</blockquote>

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