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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 9325202" data-attributes="member: 6696971">This conversation about "what constitutes real in a TTRPG" is rather the crux of a lot of the splitting of priorities (and entrenched culture war battles that ensue) in these conversations here, elsewhere, and in actual meatspace.Several years ago on here (or elsewhere...or perhaps both...I can't recall), there was conversation around what constitutes useful in DW's Spout Lore's 10+ result (interesting and useful result).  It was at that point that I introduced the term "actionable" to the conversation.  Its abundantly clear if you read and incorporate the fullness of the source material (both its parent in AW and the game itself) that the 10+ result of Spout Lore is meant for the players to be afforded an arrayed, shared imagined space which generates advantageous fiction and is the prerequisite for triggering subsequent moves which puts them (the players through their PCs) on a better (better here which is bounded by DW's novel interests; the premise of the game, the embedded protagonism within each playbook, and facility to move gamestate positively) footing to fulfill their goals.  And again, this is not for the GM to decide or to thwart.  The game tells you quite clearly to honor their victories.  They earned "useful."  It needs to be so.  And they decide on that, not the GM.  So if the GM is too coy, too opaque, too...whatever...a new form of "useful" (actionable) needs to enter the conversation via an utterance by the GM or an exchange between GM and player so that the players can act upon the introduction of this content into the shared imagined space.So, with that said, it becomes very clear to me just how much I diverge as a GM from so many ENW GMs.  Simply put:When something enters the imagined space, it needs to be actionable by one participant, another participant, or all participants.Given that, I don't think its any coincidence that my GMing history is overwhelmingly Gamism and Narrativism with only a brief (and begrudging) foray into Simulationism from 99 to 04 with an FR 3.x game.  I don't put things into the imagined space for them to be benign.  I don't want to spend table time on benign things.  I want to know what your hat looks like or what color your coat is or your particular PC's affectation only and unless it is actionable by a participant in play.  It needs to be an essential component of situation-framing, of game/situation-state changing, of fleshing out essential decision-space, or of rendering fallout/consequence (inventorying hardship/cost).  There are rare occasions where I will ask players something about their affectation or their countenance or their dress.  When I do, I hope they know (and they should if they've been players in any of my games for any amount of time) that I'm asking them this for game-related purposes.  I want to know this so I can frame a situation or change a situation-state or flesh out their decision-space or inventory and then render consequence/fallout.  That is the pretext for my question and they should understand and answer according.  That sort of focused, integrated answer makes it actionable for me as a GM to say next what I'm going to say...which the next thing I'm going to say needs to be actionable to them.That makes introduction of content into the shared imagined space "real" to me; the magnitude/scope of actionable.The more people say stuff that isn't actionable, the more rudderless the back-and-forth is, the less "real" the play is to me and the more its just wasted time.  Its like a boxing match where the fighters just passively probe and circle on the outside rather than "close the damn distance, get in the pocket, and exchange."  An easy example is something like Info Gathering phase in Blades in the Dark.  If I'm asking you questions, I'm asking you to point me in the direction of "True North" where "True North" is what the hell Score are we going to do tonight?  Don't just wander.  Don't aimlessly explore.  Have a goal...and pursue it.  And communicate it to me, and the rest of the table, clearly with the utterances coming from your mouth.That is "real" to me in TTRPGing.  For others, its clear that "real" is having a four hour session of conflict-free, mechanics-free, freeplay and no combat in D&D; just players chatting about the internal workings of their PCs, delivering affectation and color, and musing or passively exploring.  We hear that all the time.  That is a virtue championed and signaled to the rest of the TTRPG world pretty routinely.  I get that is "real" to a certain, unknowable size cohort of TTRPG players.  That couldn't be less "real" to me.  What I want is for everyone at the table to always and ever say things that are actionable, that decisively changes the situation-state and gamestate of play.  Do it again.  Then again.  Then again.  Until our game is done.</blockquote>

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