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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9017774" data-attributes="member: 71699">Getting back to a thought-experiment I hoped to construct earlier, picture that Jo has set up a stage something like as follows<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The stage is divided into a few rooms</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">In one room are the makings of beverages and repasts, and tools for doing so, along with a sturdy wooden table and chairs</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">In a second room is set up a chess game a few (legal) moves in, papers and drawing tools, a number of chairs and desks, a couch</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">In a third room - the last - there is a broad ocean, some yachts at anchor, dinghies at the quay, gulls, a pebbled strand</li> </ul>Onto this stage comes Pia, possessor of a lively sense of adventure. No one has given Pia instruction as to how they should behave or what, if anything, they should interact with. Pia first walks about the three rooms seeing what is there. They take a dip in the broad ocean. Refreshed, they recall a favourite beverage and, going to the first room, mix themselves a stiff and spicy version of it and hum a tune while sipping it. They wander into the second room and examine the chess game... soon making a move that they think a good one. Taking up some paper and drawing tools, and putting down their drink, they draw a bee, a yacht, some leaves. They write a few lines of a poem about a reflective moment in a quiet, snow-filled wood. After all these exertions, they sleep on the couch. Some hours later - waking - they turn a few chairs and desks upside down, and leave a brief note for any later visitors "Am gone to sea. P.". Returning to the third room, they row a dinghy out to a sleek two-masted schooner and - happening to possess the skills needed - set the sails, slip anchor, and sail out onto the broad ocean.A question I have in mind is whether Pia has to any extent authored their exploration and interaction with the set? Could Jo be rightly characterised as a "set dresser", so that they work in performance of a role that is in some way differentiable from that of Pia? Have Pia's actions been dictated by Jo, so that Pia has only been told a story authored by Jo? Was Jo the authoritative dictator of Pia's traverse of the set? Or did Pia have something to say about that?So far in this thread, GM-as-referee has been discussed and it is a fact that some game texts explicitly assign that fuction to them. Here I am concerned to discover if GM-as-set-dresser (or as the function is often called "world builder") is feasibly a role differentiable from "player"? In my thought-experiment I've limited myself to a fixed set. Suppose that Jo from their perch above the stage, seeing Pia set sail, hastily dresses a new set - an archipelago inhabited by wind-folk. Would such set-dressing on the fly change Jo's role so that it now seems to be undifferentiated from Pia's?</blockquote>

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