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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8345724" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'm familiar with a few different ways of describing the authoring of fiction in a RPG. I'm going to say a bit about them; this will be quite a long post as a result.<a href="http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=20791.0" target="_blank">Here's one analytic taxonomy</a>, from Ron Edwards:Content authority - over what we're calling back-story, e.g. whether Sam is a KGB mole, or which NPC is boinking whom Plot authority - over crux-points in the knowledge base at the table - now is the time for a revelation! - typically, revealing content, although notice it can apply to player-characters' material as well as GM material - and look out, because within this authority lies the remarkable pitfall of wanting (for instances) revelations and reactions to apply precisely to players as they do to characters Situational authority - over who's there, what's going on - scene framing would be the most relevant and obvious technique-example, or phrases like "That's when I show up!" from a player Narrational authority - how it happens, what happens - I'm suggesting here that this is best understood as a feature of resolution (including the entirety of IIEE), and not to mistake it for describing what the castle looks like, for instance; I also suggest it's far more shared in application than most role-players realize . . . Do they have causal relationships among one another? Of course. The easiest version is top-down reductionist: because content is consulted, a plot authority decision is made, and then a situational authority decision/presentation must be made, and finally narrational authority must be exercised. I assume that for you, this is the most easy and familiar construction, and you're used to conducting them (or at least constructing them, idealistically speaking) as a single causal sequence in this order, with one person in charge - it's a "thing," perhaps the thing you call GMing.So let's think about an example of Edwards' "easiest version": the GM consults content - eg a timeline, a description of a NPC, or whatever; and therefore decides that now is the time for a certain moment in the plot (eg now is when the evil cult ritual takes place); and then exercises situational authority (eg As you are sitting in the tavern thinking you've solved all the problems, you see a dark cloud gathering above the temple of . . .). I would call this GM-driven play. I personally tend to find it rather railroad-y, because as a player my main experience in the RPGing process is to reason backwards to the GM's notes. (In this example, the timeline.)Let's think about a variant of the above, which I think is fairly typical in RPGing and have described as "railroading": following the module, the GM decides that now is when a plot moment is going to take place (eg the evil cult ritual); and so the GM exercises content authority (eg manipulating the backstory - even though the players thought their PCs had defeated the cultists, the GM makes up a second-string of cult leadership to create an in-fiction explanation for why the ritual still takes place); and then the GM exercises situational authority similarly to the previous paragraph, to present the plot moment to the players via their PCs.Now lets think about the haunted house (or quantum ogre): there is no plot authority being exercised here, because the PCs stumbling upon a haunted house isn't itself a plot event (ie it's not a "crux-point in our knowledge base at the table). It's the exercise of situational authority.So what we have is players exercise narrational authority (ie "We head north . . .") and then the GM exercises situational authority (ie "You see a foreboding house by the road up ahead . . .") and at that point the GM might also exercise content authority (ie invents some backstory to help explain the haunted house - eg maybe the GM makes a note The house is haunted because its occupants were cruel landlords whose spirits linger on until all the peasants' rent is collected). In this situation, a key plot moment will be the players (and probably their PCs) realising why the house is haunted. Another key plot moment will probably be what ever it is the PCs do about the peasants and their rents (eg leave the peasants alone and leave the house haunted; drive out the spirits to allow the peasant to safely approach the house; collect the peasants' rents to appease the spirits; pay the debts with their own money; etc). I don't see any reason why this would have to be a railroad; though of course in different systems it would probably play out differently.In general, if we're talking about non-railroaded play, then the GM cannot have compete plot authority - some of those plot moments have to be the result of player action declarations for their PCs.Here's another bundle of terminology, that I often used influenced by Edwards (from his various essays and posts) and by Luke Crane in his Burning Wheel rulebooks:Backstory is roughly what Edwards, above, calls content. It can be introduced by the GM - You're in Hardby, a city south of Greyhawk and at the north of the Wild Coast. Think a classic S&S city, ruled by a magic-wielding Gynarch. It can also be introduced by players - I think this world we're starting on must be a gas giant moon. A big part of the rationale, in PbtA games, of asking questions and building on the answers it to establish this sort of backstory.Sometimes backstory is potentially contentious - eg it would be handy for the player, and the player's PC, if Evard's Tower was around here, because the PC wants to find spell books and Evard's Tower is likely to be bursting with them! But are we just going to hand over such a juicy bit of backstory on a platter? In DW, the answer is no - the player says "I'm remembering what I learned about Evard's Tower while studying as a novice wizard", and the GM says "Well it sounds like you're spouting lore, then!" and calls for the check. If it succeeds, the GM tells the player something about the subject, interesting and perhaps useful as the degree of success dictates. (Eg interesting - "Yes, Evard's tower is not far away on the other side of the river; useful - "And cross the river, on the other bank, you can see the twin willow trees that mark the beginning of the notorious Weeping shadow way that leads straight to the tower".) In Burning Wheel, the answer is also no - the player makes a Wise check (eg, as per actual play, on Great Masters-wise), and if it succeeds then the hoped-for information is true.What about if the check fails? This is where we find another way of establishing backstory - as the narration of a consequence by the GM. In DW this is "as hard and direct a move as you like" (I think that's the AW language, but the idea in DW will be much the same). In Burning Wheel, this is something adverse to the PC's purpose that also hooks onto the PC's Beliefs, Instincts and/or Traits. A hard move might be You recall that Evard's Tower has burned down - if it any spellbooks survived, they won't be in the shell of the tower! This would also be a reasonable failure narration in BW. A softer move might be to provide the interesting, even useful, information about Evard's Tower but to narrate that, across the river, the PC can see Orcs heading down the Weeping shadow way.That last example takes us into Framing or Scene-framing. This is similar to Edwards's situational authority: ie establishing a context in which a PC is present (or more than one PC) and in which action is called for. In PbtA terminology, framing would normally be some sort of soft move: most often, probably, an unwelcome truth that will crystalise into something undesirable if the PC(s) doesn't act (like the Orcs heading to Evard's Tower). An alternative, fairly typical, sort of framing is presenting the PC(s) with an opportunity to gain something. This is what is happening in my example of interesting and relevant for Spout Lore - the GM frames the PC(s) into a scene in which they can head directly to Evard's Tower.In some systems, the players can sometimes control framing: eg in classic dungeon play, when the players exercise narrational authority (eg we take the left corridor) then the GM consults the content that s/he has established (in advance of play) be exercising content authority and drawing a map and writing a key; and this content will then dictate what the situation is, ie what scene the GM has to frame. Or, in Burning Wheel, a player can declare a Circles check hoping to meet a NPC, and if the check succeeds then the GM has to narrate the encounter as taking place. Notice that in the classic dungeoncrawling play content authority has already been exercised, in advance of play, and dictates the situation; whereas in the BW example the scene framing flows straight from a successful check by the player, and the content that then explains it in the fiction (eg why was this NPC hanging around at this time) has to be established. This could be done by the GM, or by GM and player together in an "ask questions and build on the answers" style.In the quote above, you say "some of the ways you've described it sounded...well, really railroady, "you'll do this because I'm the one telling you this story" level control". I don't think so. Exercising situational authority to frame a scene is to call the players to action, via their PCs. In games in which the GM exercises control over framing, a very important GM skill is to frame interesting and engaging scenes. As Edwards puts it, giving advice in the same thread I linked to above:If, for example, we are playing a game in which I, alone, have full situational authority, and if everyone is confident that I will use that authority to get to stuff they want (for example, taking suggestions), then all is well . . . It's not the distributed or not-distributed aspect of situational authority you're concerned with, it's your trust at the table, as a group, that your situations in the S[hared[] I[maginary] S[pace] [ie the shared fiction] are worth anyone's time. Bluntly, you guys ought to work on that.Going back to the Evard's Tower example, for instance: if I as GM am going to use the resolution of the successful Spout Lore/Wises check to frame the PCs into the situation the players want, and I'm not sure what that is (eg in DW terms, I'm not sure what would be not only interesting but useful), then I can ask the player who made the check!If a group want to play a game in which we kind-of pretend that no one is making these framing decisions, and so we never talk about them overtly, then the main risk is the one that Edwards has identified: boring play. Eg the GM narrates a haunted house, but the players aren't interested. In railroading threads it's common to see posters saying The players should be free to reject the "hook", but that rests on a premise that the GM is essentially framing scenes blind. And the typically proffered solution, which is to not frame the PCs into a situation where they see a foreboding house down the road, but rather to feed them rumours (or "breadcrumbs") about a haunted house, doesn't deal with the problem of boring play: it just defers the action by hiding it behind a whole lot of players-declare-actions-to-trigger-more-revelation-of-content-by-the-GM until eventually they know enough to declare actions that will have them arrive at some place or other that takes their fancy - "hunting for the GM's plot". At least from my point of view, this is both tedious and railroad-y. And games like PbtA-ish ones, Burning Wheel, and the like have multiple devices - in PC building, in "asking questions and building on answers" - to make sure this doesn't happen. The GM can just cut to the chase and frame a scene that will engage the players.What they do - ie what actions the players declare for their PCs in response to the GM's framing - is of course up to them.Besides backstory and framing, I often talk about consequences - ie the fiction that results from adjudicating action declarations. This often involves narrational authority, in the straightforward sense that the outcome of the action declaration requires saying what happens (eg "You skewer the Orc with your spear"). But not always - as per the above, sometimes it might be content authority (if the action was a Wises-check) or situational authority (if the action was a Circles-check). If the check fails, then generally it is the GM who is going to narrate the ensuing consequence, and often this will feed back into the next round of framing (eg as per seeing the Orcs making their way towards the Tower); if the check succeeds, then in BW it is always the player who establishes the consequence, but in other systems it might be the GM who actually decides the consequence but always having regard to the fact that the player succeeded on a check.Anyway, from all the above I hope you can see that I don't personally think of either the GM or the players as having distinctively direct nor distinctively mediated control over the fiction. It all depends on how the system being played allocates various sorts of powers to establish various sorts of fiction. If someone told me that, in their game, the GM is always free to establish fiction without regard to mediation via mechanics, and/or without considering what the players have signalled they are interested in, I'd anticipate a pretty railroad-y game.To me, this sounds like you are exercising content authority as per Edwards's "easiest version": you are deciding content/backstory independently of play, mostly in advance of play, and then you are revealing that backstory/content as part of the narration of consequences that flow from particular action declarations by the players for their PCs.This is a pretty typical way of playing D&D, perhaps the most typical.I'm not 100% sure how you are using it in DW, because I'm not sure how you're handling 6-down results - eg if the players knock on the wall to Discern Realities and you've already decided there is a hidden space behind it, then probably they should notice that there's a hollow rapping with no need for a check (shouldn't they?). I think DW, which is based on AW, was at least conceived as working on similar lines to the latter - ie the GM establishes the content following the making of the check, always having an eye on the situation that will flow from what s/he tells the player (as per the "interesting", "useful" and "as hard and direct move as you like" constraints on what content exactly the GM is allowed to establish).Another thing that can flow from authoring content in advance of play is that this is often then used to establish the consequences of declared actions: the classic example is that consulting the pre-drawn map will often tell us, without any further uncertainty, that a PC cannot find a secret door in this particular wall. To use Edward's terminology, the prior exercise of content authority dictates that a certain plot moment (discovering a secret door in the wall) cannot occur, and hence that a certain situation ("Woah, I just discovered a secret door in the wall - what will I do now?") can't occur. Your reference to the players having a "fighting chance" suggests that this might be how you are approaching DW. This is not how I would normally think of DW being played - again, I would assume that the sequence is first narrational authority (ie the player declares something that his/her PC does that constitutes an attempt to Discern Realities) and then the roll is made and then the GM exercises content authority in response, having regard to the appropriate constraints, and also with a keen eye on the situation that will be framed as a result of what s/he says in response to the player's move.In this way - ie the way I would see as more typical of DW play - the notion of a "fighting chance" doesn't really have any work to do, as there is no unrevealed backstory, established by prior exercise of content authority, that is constraining what the players can hope to have their PCs do.</blockquote>

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