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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7412540" data-attributes="member: 82106">Well, there are a LOT of different variations on types of games, so I'm not sure I can cover them all with any blanket statement, and we all often get into this problem where we talk in somewhat general terms and then there's some games where X doesn't apply.So, like here, sure, if its a PURE sandbox, and the GM is really seriously good at being a purely neutral arbiter, then that might be entirely the case, but that seems almost impossible. I mean, the GM in a game like that is STILL going to drop some story hooks, right? Which ones does she drop? Is it pretty much never the ones that might fool the party into going to the 'place of certain death?' Is it pretty much always the ones that lead to the 'place of level-appropriate lootz?' I mean this is how you run these games, I've done 100's of them myself, so I have a fairly good idea.Even if we are less harsh in our analysis, its still hard to find a game that REALLY lives up completely to your standards, because it means there virtually isn't going to be any sort of backstory. I mean, your problem now is actually that story creeps in so easily, and its so hard not to draw it along and help it happen.So, I don't want to be argumentative with you, I think your commentary is pretty fair and its not like its ridiculous or anything. I do get what you are saying. I think its, again, one of those things where there's a degree of truth in what different people say. Maybe nobody is precisely correct all the time. I think a built world implies a lot of things, including plots, which are likely to become actual in play. Sometimes that will be because a player wanted it thus, and sometimes not. Yeah, I don't feel defensive. I feel misunderstood by some people, but I think there's actually a pretty reasonable amount of mutual understanding here. Some people got chapped a little and I think some of them talked themselves into some questionable positions that kind of irritated me a little bit. These things tend to take over threads unless we just move on. I think its fair to state that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s players can only 'create' that which is logically consistent with the state of the fiction and the nature of the fiction. That doesn't mean they cannot 'author' anything, they can certainly author a secret door, with a good Perception check. From there its a mixture of simply character choices (where things which are natural and not contested simply happen, and the player is expressing his interests) and conflicted actions where checks are required. These are often simply 'character agency' things, but they help tell the GM what direction to take the fiction in. I mean, such things can be VERY powerful and you can see how with a system like Cortex+ Heroic they can have a very large impact on how the story unfolds. A character in that game could invent a 'girlfriend resource' for instance, or a 'historical event' resource, or a 'the town is burning' resource, etc.! I think that's perfectly fair. In that, not insignificant, respect you are playing in a narrativistic fashion, to create a story. Its when games sidetrack into the sorts of things that Lanefan and Maxperson sometimes describe that I think the big difference arises. In my games you won't end up spending lots of time dwelling on blind alleys and loose ends that aren't tied to any kind of interest of the players. Now, I don't know the particulars of your games enough to know if that is true for yours or not. Beyond that, I'm not trying to condemn it, I'm just saying it got old for me. I have played 1000 characters in 1000 games (conservatively!) and I just like to get on to the 'good stuff'.</blockquote>

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