Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7364917" data-attributes="member: 42582">What counts as effective difference obviously is relative to things that matter to people.What matters to me is the actual experience of playing the game - at each moment of play, what fiction is the focus of play? where did it come from? why do we care about it?Given those concerns, the difference between a GM-authored obstacle that must be played through before we get to the thing the player cares about and a GM-authored consequence for a failed check in dealing with the thing the player cares about is vast. The first is GM-driven and verges on a railroad: the player has to jump through the GM's hoops before play actually gets to what s/he wants it to be about. The fact that there might be multiple ways of jumping through the hoops - bribe a guard or visit a sage or whatever - doesn't reduce its railroad-y character. The player still has to play through all this GM-authored stuff before getting to the bit s/he's interested in.The second is the player being confronted with a situation that speaks to the PC's dramatic need. The player makes choices about that - try to buy it? try to steal it? try to analyse it? - and the results of these choices yield consequences that the GM authors having regard to these same dramatic needs.The episode of play I described is about a wizard who is in Hardby, hoping to find an item to help him free his brother from possession haggling over an angel feather, and learning that it is cursed.The player made the choice that made angel feathers salient (ie the player authored the PC's belief). The player made the choice that might reveal the feather as cursed (ie to read the aura of the feather).The hypothetical example you put forward involves situations whose content is established by the GM; and where the consequences will also be established by the GM. The payer "drives the story forward" only in the sense that the player declares actions. That is to say, it is a RPG.What  [MENTION=1282]darkbard[/MENTION] and [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] say seems more accurate to me.Suppose the check succeeds and the PC identifies some useful trait of the feather. He still has to acquire it somehow. He still has to use his Alchemy and Enchanting to work it into some usable form. This would require tools which he currently doesn't have. And he still has to find his brother!And as I already posted upthread - "work" here is inapt. We're talking about a hobby, a pastime, playing a game. The question isn't whether or not the player has to "work" for anything. It's about whether the focus of the play is on the stuff the player has flagged, or some other stuff the GM wants to play through.The game has to start somewhere. A bazaar is barey less traditional than a tavern!What is significant about the bazaar scene is not that it is a bazaar, but that a peddler is selling an angel feather.The PC can make mistakes or follow false leads - the feather turned out to be one!The difference is that the false leads and distractions are not GM-driven material displacing the content that speaks to the PC's dramatic needs - ie the material that affirms player agency over the content of the shared fiction.</blockquote>

Verification