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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7377902" data-attributes="member: 42582">Here are two things a character can reasonably do in a fantasy RPG: find a map hidden in a study; find a secret door into a castle. In some cases, finding a holy sword on sale at a market would be a third such thing.The GM declaring that such things are not possible is thus a burden on player agency as you have characterised it.I don't follow your contrast, given that "control" and "agency" are near enough to synonyms in this context.But in any event, what you're describing here is not an example of the "standard narratavistic model". The concepts of dramatic need, thematic moment, etc are doing no work. The context for decision that you describe is all established by the GM independently of those things.This is not at all what Eero Tuovinen is talking about. First, <a href="https://isabout.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/the-pitfalls-of-narrative-technique-in-rpg-play/" target="_blank">as he says</a>, "Character advocacy is also a common ideal in D&D, although I do admit that there are readings of the game text where advocacy is not present. . . . An alternative reading might be that the player’s job is to create a mechanically powerful character that he then uses to win challenges set up by the GM." The sort of D&D game text where character advocacy is not present would include B2. You can read Luke Crane - a designer of a "standard narrativist model" game (Burning Wheel) contrasting B2 with "story now" RPGing <a href="https://plus.google.com/111266966448135449970/posts/Q8qRhCw7az5" target="_blank">here</a>.(Luke Crane also makes clear that, in B2, "mechanically powerful characters" aren't that relevant, but winning challenges and solving puzzles is central to play.)Second, even if there was no actual discussion of this the difference would be obvious.In the standard narrativist model, the GM's job is to:frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments (defined in narrativistic theory as moments of in-character action that carry weight as commentary on the game’s premise) by introducing complications . . . 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.And where do the dramatic needs come from?The rest of the players each have their own characters to play. They play their characters according to the advocacy role: the important part is that they naturally allow the character’s interests to come through based on what they imagine of the character’s nature and background. . . . The player’s task in these games is simple advocacy, which is not difficult once you have a firm character. (Chargen is a key consideration in these games, compare them to see how different approaches work.)The "advocacy role" is not player gets to declare actions for the PC - which is satisfied by any RPG at all (unless it is some bizarre degenerate thing where the GM is declaring the players' moves for them). It is player plays the character in accordance with the PC's dramatic needs. This requires the framing of scenes where those dramatic needs are actually engaged.It could hardly be more obvious that B2 is not an example of this. Character generation does not yield anything about PCs' natures and backgrounds. And even if they did, there is absolutely no provision in B2 for the GM to frame scenes in a way that responds to those elements of character and thereby provokes thematic moments.It's almost equally obvious that a game in which the dramatic need is entering a castle, and in which the GM simply blocks - by narrative fiat - an attempt by the PCs to sneak in via a secret door, is not being run on the "standard narrativistic model".Have you actually played any of the RPGs that Eero Tuovinen references as exemplifying the "standard narrativstic model"? (The ones he mentions are Sorcerer, Dogs in the Vineyard, Heroquest, The Shadow of Yesterday, Mountain Witch, and Primetime Adventures.)The most important "restriction" on the GM - which you mention! - is to frame the action so as to provoke thematic moments. And where do the salient themes and dramatic need come from? The players! This is one of significant way in which players exercise agency over the content of the shared fiction.And it's not about the GM's ability to craft an interesting narrative! This is what these games were invented to get away from. Sorcerer, DitV etc are reactions against GM authorship of narrative (as exemplfied eg by a module liek Dead Gods, or the White Wolf games of the 1990s).The whole point, as Eero Tuovinen puts it, is that "[t]he fun in these games from the player’s viewpoint comes from the fact that he can create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character". He's not talking here about pseudo-choices (to look for secret doors where there are none, which has no impact on anything). He's talking about actual choices that actually change how things unfold; and that - as he says - yield actual consequences that then feed into subsequent framings.</blockquote>

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