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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jacksonmalloy" data-source="post: 6263432" data-attributes="member: 6696350">An observation I've had after really thinking on the subject that is loosely related to the point you were making above, nnms:One of the chief differences I've been able to sort out is actually the role of the player and how they relate to their character. It is at least on this axis a sliding scale from Immersion to Narration. Specifically, this seems to break down into:Director Stance, Author Stance, Pilot Stance, and Immersive Stance. These may be better defined elsewhere, or better named elsewhere, but these are the terms that come to mind that, for all intents and purposes, I'm making up on the spot to suit my purpose. Immersive Stance is the farthest end of the Spectrum. In Immersive Stance, you are the character. You are expected to interact with the world purely on the level of the fiction of the world. Your actions are narrative. You are expected to do what your character would do, think how they think, and so on. The mechanics of the game should be in the background as much as possible, and the decisions made are supposed to be based on the narrative information in front of you. Pilot Stance is a step removed from this. While you are still in many ways "the character," the game now creates an incentive to make decisions not just on the narrative information, but on the mechanics of the system as well. Where before you were in the head of the character, looking through his or her eyes, the mental image to come to mind here is being in the cockpit piloting the character, with a HUD keeping the relevant stats, modifiers, special abilities, and other system mechanics in your peripheral vision. I would argue that this is where 3.x and pathfinder sit - and many similar games. Yes, you're still "in-character" but the manipulation of the mechanics of that system is itself an important part of the game. Author Stance is another step removed, continuing down the spectrum. In Author Stance, the goal is shifting from "being the character" to "telling the story." You have shifted from being behind the eyes of the character or in the cockpit to being the author, outside of the character. While you still make decisions based on what the character would or wouldn't do, that is because it makes for a better story than if their motivations were random or unfathomable. In addition, you aren't just interacting with the system mechanically, but a big part of the game becomes manipulating that system to manipulate the story itself - power shifts from the GM to player, giving them authoring tools of their own. Fate and Burning Wheel both feel like Author Stance games to me, as the emphasis is on story-telling, and utilizing the meta-game mechanics is a big part of how they play. On the other farthest end of the spectrum is Director Stance. In games that take Director Stance, creating the group story is the most important thing, with your own personal character a distant second. This is the position taken in certain games that either completely lack a game master, or the position of the GM is more moderator than author. Fiasco is the best example of this to come to mind, with the chief goal to be getting your character into trouble in a way that is entertaining for the group -- not their personal survival, story, or well-being. A lot of games straddle the lines between these, surely, but these are the points that stick out to me. I should point out that my own tastes normally actually lean towards author stance games, so none of this is meant to be critical or negative. As I try to reflect and examine my early experiences and talk to friends, the biggest common denominator I'm finding is that the early games (at least the way we played them) took the immersive stance. Thoughts?</blockquote>

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