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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7376118" data-attributes="member: 42582">Travel times and distances don't matter in this game. In John Boorman's Excalibur, how far did the knights ride on the Grail Quest? It doesn't matter. How long did it take Arthur to ride from Camelot to his final confrontation with Mordred? It doesn't matter.What matters is that Snow is All About, that The Giants are Almost Upon Us!, and that there are Frightened Villagers. That's why these are called out as scene distinctions.As best I recall, everything that is learned about the history of the Ring comes out either through Gandalf telling Frodo, or through various speakers at the Council of Elrond. Unlike the film version, there is no abstracted narrator who tells us this stuff.But notice that we never learn (for instance) the history of the mayors of the Shire, nor the history of the rulers of the Southrons, nor the nature of agriculture near Laketown and Dale, nor exactly how hobbits get their cheese. There is an indefinite amount of stuff about the world which is not part of the story. And in game play, all the stuff that anyone cares about can come out in play, by focusing on the actual concerns of play. Mechanics that can produce it of course vary from system to system, but plenty of systems have mechanics of the right sort: whether those are Lore mechanics, or contacts mechanics, or mechanics for influencing NPCs, or perception/search mechanics, or whatever.Here is an actual play post (sblocked for length):[sblock][/sblock]I don't think that is lacking in depth or colour. But it did not depend upon the GM introducing random details of intersections and beaten slaves.You are assuming that, in RPGing, this sort of dynamism can only be the result of GM-driven play. But there is simply no evidence that that is the case!The PCs in my Cortex+ Heroic game set off to find out why the Northern Lights were behaving strangely, but have not yet got very far north. They arrived at a dungeon and entered it, but learned nothing of relevance to their mission. Instead, after getting teleported to the depths by a Crypt Thing, they ended up in dark elf caverns and one of them tricked the drow out of their gold while the others had to fight their way out and trudge home. Since then, they have been caught up trying to save the villagers whose village was destroyed by Ragnarok cultists that the PCs could not defeat.Your analysis and assumptions completely ignores the significance of player choice (eg a player chooses to go for the gold rather than continue with the quest) and of failed action resolution (the PCs fail to save the village, and so now - if they want to rescue the captured villagers - have to postpone their quest).This is all assuming a GM-driven game. It shows a complete failure to grasp how player-driven RPGing actually works.You may have read <a href="https://www.arkenstonepublishing.net/isabout/2010/02/16/the-pitfalls-of-narrative-technique-in-rpg-play/" target="_blank">these</a> <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/narr_essay.html" target="_blank">blogs</a>, but I don't think you actually processed what they are saying:The actual procedure of play is very simple: once the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character (or wherever the premise comes from, depends on the game). The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end.There cannot be any "the story" during Narrativist play, because to have such a thing (fixed plot or pre-agreed theme) is to remove the whole point: the creative moments of addressing the issue(s).Frame situations that will provoke choices (and not just requests for more setting download), let the players make choices, establish consequences (which may be what the players want, if checks succeed; or not what they want, if checks fail), and then frame something new in light of that. It's pretty simple. And it will produce a story that no one new in advance was going to come. Without the GM having to provide a menu of setting elements for the players to choose from.</blockquote>

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