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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7404315" data-attributes="member: 82106">I think there isn't ONE specific answer. First, different games might allocate specific responsibility for this. It could be a responsibility of the GM, which admittedly then becomes very much like "it isn't on the map". If the GM is really 'story now' though they will only nix possibilities that are really genre breaking or utterly ridiculous in a game-degrading way. Another answer is that the players should be reasonable, they after all have a big stake in the game. Sure, in a given game they might 'break the game' by 'inventing' some vast amount of secret doors, but the standard narrative model doesn't just implode! The GM is still framing challenges, and the players can only succeed on checks so much of the time, eventually they will be buried in consequences of failures. In a sense we're only arguing here about the DETAILS of the fiction, because EVERY narrative model game is going to have this character, the players declare actions to advance their agendas. Since it doesn't actually matter MECHANICALLY what those actions are (modulus which skill/power/whatever you get to use due to fictional reasons), the ONLY actual considerations are aesthetic! So it makes no sense for the players to declare dumb things, they are just as well off to declare cool things! You might as well ask why GMs in 'classic' D&D don't just make ridiculous and impossible adventures all the time.This is reasonable. It isn't EXACTLY 'classical' world building and play, but its a plausible procedure for running a game. I think there are many sorts of possible RPGs. The OP simply contrasted two sorts of design. We can expand the discussion to many others.I think this is going back in the direction of mixing classical game logic with narrativist ideas and things aren't coherent. In classical play your observation is entirely cogent. In standard narrative model it doesn't make much sense. I mean, if the players jumped down, then they had SOME reason, right? I mean, why are they here to begin with? What do they WANT? I would make something happen that was related to the story and the characters. Maybe there's a way out, maybe someone can get back out. I mean, what did you do? "OK, TPK, everyone roll up a new character!"? I mean, that's warranted, in a Gygaxian sense, and perfectly OK. It just doesn't serve narrativist ends and wouldn't happen in that sort of game. Nobody would frame a scene with that element in it which would produce that result.I believe I described such a scenario which I invented years ago where NO SURVIVAL was possible, the entire party was doomed. This was pretty much a narrativist game, it was all about how the characters reacted. Anyway, I don't think its impossible to have ultimate failure in a narrativist game. It really isn't even that controversial. As you say, failure can be quite dramatic!I agree, and even Pemerton seems to agree, calling it relational IIRC. I think I agree with you MORE than he states he does, but I think this is just one of these cases where nobody wants to listen much. I think 'secret door' is more a code for situations where the players aren't allowed to advance the narrative because the GM sticks to specific fictional positioning. It could be LITERALLY the secret door that Pemerton talked about, but maybe its a lot more likely to be a sequence of things where the players try X, and then Y, and then Z, and somehow always get nowhere. Its pretty easy to start to suspect that this is intentional...</blockquote>

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