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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7388788" data-attributes="member: 42582">[MENTION=71699]clearstream[/MENTION], I think I would find your posts easier to respond to if I had some sense of what RPGs, or what sorts of play experiences, you have in mind when you make your observations.What kind? It has a very thorough description of RPGing that involves pre-authorship of setting with the goal being for the GM to tell the players about that setting. It's a form of "high concept simulationism". I am not following your point. Yes, as Vincent Baker has pointed out for a long time now, the core function of a RPG system is to establish what stuff gets incorporated into the shared fiction, and how. (I think this claim may need some qualification if we're talking about classic dungeon-crawling, but I'm not and I don' think you are either.)How does that shine light on the function of pre-play authorship of setting by a GM?But manifestly you have less agency over the content of the shared fiction then you would in a "no myth" game.And more to the point for this thread, if the GM uses the pre-authored details of EPT to declare action declarations unsuccessful by reference to unrevealed elements of fictional positioning ("secret/hidden backstory") then it is the GM whose agency is pre-eminent. I don't understand the second-last sentence.As far as I can tell (by reading blogs, reading threads on ENworld, etc) most contemporary RPGing is not classic D&D, does involve rather extensive GM world building (either directly, or by choosing to use a setting authored by another), and does involve only modest player agency in respect of the shared fiction. As best I can tell, a significant amount of player action declarations have the purpose and function of triggering the GM to tell the players more about the setting (either by reading from notes, or by telling them stuff that is actually made up on the spot but that notionally is coming from the notes - "I did such a good job of winging it that the players couldn't tell!" is the typical hallmark of this sort of thing). And a significant amount of player choice is dependent on this - the players first get the GM, in effect, to provide a list of possibilities by narrating elements of the world, and then choose from among them.Whether or not this is "fine" obviously is a matter of taste.</blockquote>

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