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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7379295" data-attributes="member: 42582">My point is that  [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] doesn't tell us anything about (for instance) any such sacrifice being required. Or anything else that brings character personality or agenda to the fore. The only choice the player of the rogue had to make was do I declare a search, or do I not bother? Nothing was at stake.What it tells me is that this is not a game in which advocacy, in Eero Tuovinen's sense, is important.And at least in my games most of what we learn about characters comes out of action declarations.I've posted many actual play links in this thread, and described a number as well. Here are just a handful:* A Traveller PC asks the bishop whether mysterious mental abilities are part of his religious practice. We see how keen the PC is to find someone to teach her psionics. * As the mage Joachim is decapitated in front of him, a Burning Wheel PC looks around the room to see if there is a vessel to catch the blood. We see that the PC is committed to ensuring that his dark master gets the blood of this mage so it can be offered to the spirits of the earth and darkness. * The first thing the mage Jobe does when he returns to his now-ruined tower, after 14 years away, is search for the nickel-silver mace he had left behind when the orcs attacked. We see how important this mace (and, more generally, the prospect of enchanting items) is to this PC. * The skinchanger scout climbs up the pallisade of the giant steading, looks around and sees a barn, and then takes a giant ox from it to try and trick the giants by offering to sell their own cattle back to them. From this we see that the PC is a trickster. * War Machine is flying above Washington, DC, with his "date" in his arms. He knows that she has some sort of interest in the Stark tech Multi-Person Orbit and Reentry Vehicle on display at the Smithsonian, and would probably like him to help her steal it. When he receives an alert that intruders are in the museum, he leaves the woman hanging from the top of the Washington monument. We learn from that where his loyalties lie; and also that he is not very ruthless. * The paladin of the Raven Queen persuades his fellow PCs to pacify rather than kill a wild cave bear that they encounter in a ruined temple. The PCs calm the bear, and the player of the paladin says "I feel really good about not having killed that bear." We learn that the PCs, led by this PC in particular, are not (always) ruthless killers. * The invoker/wizard decides to let the Raven Queen take the souls that have been freed from the Soul Abattoir, even though he knows that Vecna wants them, and - given that the Eye of Vecna is implanted in the character's imp familiar - may take revenge for the decision. We learn that this PC is loyal to the Raven Queen and is prepared to thwart Vecna (whom he nevertheless, in some sense, worships). (We also see, once again, how liable Vecna is to betrayal! It must be his fate.) * The chaos sorcerer decides to seal the Abyss, by rendering one of his zones into a permanent and impenetrable zone of entropy, even though this means he will never recharge that daily power. We learn that this PC is prepared to sacrifice his magical power in order to sever the connection between the Abyss and the rest of the cosmos.If action declarations aren't telling you anything about the PCs, that's a pretty clear sign that you're not playing a game in the "standard narrativistic model".As with Maxperson's example, this tells me something about the dynamics of your games: the GM is the one who establishes the stakes of situations, with the players having little or no significant input. And there is little or no "advocacy" in Eero Tuovinen's sense.The following passage from <a href="https://playsorcerer.wordpress.com/2008/07/23/the-interactive-toolkit-part-three-character-character-character/" target="_blank">Christopher Kubasik's "Interactive Tookit"</a> seems relevant to this:Characters drive the narrative of all stories. However, many people mistake character for characterization. Characterization is the look of a character, the description of his voice, the quirks of habit. Characterization creates the concrete detail of a character through the use of sensory detail and exposition. By “seeing” how a character looks, how he picks up his wine glass, by knowing he has a love of fine tobacco, the character becomes concrete to our imagination, even while remaining nothing more than black ink upon a white page. But a person thus described is not a character. A character must do. Character is action. That’s a rule of thumb for plays and movies, and is valid as well for roleplaying games and story entertainments. This means that the best way to reveal your character is not through on an esoteric monologue about pipe and tobacco delivered by your character, but through your character’s actions. But what actions? Not every action is true to a character; it is not enough to haphazardly do things in the name of action. Instead, actions must grow from the roots of Goals. A characterization imbued with a Goal that leads to action is a character.This is an early statement (1995, I think) of the ideas that Eero Tuovinen is talking about when he refers to advocacy and "the standard narrativistic model".This was already addressed by  [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION]. Here are some RPGs I'm familiar with where the gulf you assert is absent: Burning Wheel, Cortex+ Heroic, HeroWars/Quest, Dogs in the Vineyard, The Dying Earth. Here are some where the basic mechanic is the same, although there are extra bells and whistles for combat: Rolemaster, Classic Traveller, Runequest, 4e.If by "most RPGs" you mean the versions of D&D that Lanefan is familiar with, well OK, but that's an idiosyncratic definition of "most".</blockquote>

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