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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7401234" data-attributes="member: 42582">What I describe isn't particularly about "setting tourism."Every time a player talks about "scouting out" some location, or "gathering information", or similar episodes of "exploration", in the context of a GM-worldbuilding RPG, they are talking about having the GM tell them a story about the place s/he made up.Take the simplest example of dungeon play:Player: "I poke in front of me with a 10' pole as I walk down the 30' long passage." <GM consults dungeon map and key> GM: "OK, after 10' of walking you feel that the floor in front of you - half way down the passage - gives under your pole. It seems to be a trapdoor of some sort."What is happening, at the table, in this episode of play? The player makes a move by declaring an action for his/her PC. The purpose of that move is to get the GM to relate some of the content of a fiction that s/he has made up.In a traditional dungeon there is also a boardgame/wargame element - because the dungeon map is a physical artefact on which the movement of the PCs is tracked - but that tends to be absent from much contemporary RPGing.Eg:<GM describes PCs passing through the city gates.> Player: "We look around. We want to find the quarter of the city which is likely to have curio shops, sages, astrologers, that sort of thing - so that we might be able to get some item or clue to help us fight that demon." GM: "OK, well, you can see three roads leading away from the gate. The widest is directly in front of you, and seems to lead up a hill where you can see the spires of a temple at the top. To the left a road leads around the base of the hill. The buildings look ill-kept, and the people coming from that direction look poorly dressed and the shoes are muddy. To the right, a road follows the wall up the ridge. There are stone buildings. You see a small group of well-dressed young people coming towards you, and you can hear they're speaking a foreign language." Player: "OK, we take the right road. It seems most likely to have the scholars or travellers we're looking for."This doesn't depend on maps and keys - it's just as likely the GM is reading from or paraphrasing or relying on a passage of description that s/he wrote earlier, or that was published in a commercial setting book. So it doesn't have the boardgame/wargame aspect of classic dungeoneering.But it is still about the players declaring moves that trigger the GM to tell them things that the GM (or other author) made up about the setting.My impression - from reading rulebooks, from reading blogs, from reading these boards - is that this sort of thing is pretty common in RPGing, especially contemporary D&D play.Well, "story" is less technical than "fiction"  - which some posters don't like. I'm just trying to use a fairly generic word.When I Google "story meaing" I get "an account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment." That's what I'm talking about. Earlier parts of this post illustrate what I have i mind.</blockquote>

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