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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 9031383" data-attributes="member: 82106">You sound a lot like me c1992 maybe. My response was to essentially try to construct an entire campaign as a sort of giant multi-dimensional process sim where every path which could be taken, across an entire vast AP-like game would be constrained by defined parameters. VERY VERY quickly what I realized in play, after months of prep was:A) The players don't especially know, care, or appreciate how the fiction is generated. There is no special level of quality of fiction that appears simply because the GM made stuff up a while ago.B) Unless you want to hard railroad there are very few game structures that work, and they all either heavily constrain the form of play, or they just lead to a sort of unfocused and mostly undramatic play.The upshot was my response to make that campaign work. Lose the focus on the elements I created and focus on what happens when the character's personalities and motives drive play.The meta-plot still existed, but like a DW front. One player had a female druid and her character spent years fighting a power struggle with the male-dominated druid hierarchy. I think I might have made 2 druid NPCs before that and had a plot point that the main group of druids was less than helpful to the local kingdom in its problem. She turned it into this whole other theme where the 'mothers' forced the hierarchy out of power etc. She even added this whole flower power thing and called her character 'Summer Twilight' etc.I don't think it was exactly like modern narrativist play but it did put character ahead of plots and any silly notion of what 'should' happen or anything like that. Oddly, that game felt much more organic and true than any other!</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 9031383, member: 82106"] You sound a lot like me c1992 maybe. My response was to essentially try to construct an entire campaign as a sort of giant multi-dimensional process sim where every path which could be taken, across an entire vast AP-like game would be constrained by defined parameters. VERY VERY quickly what I realized in play, after months of prep was: A) The players don't especially know, care, or appreciate how the fiction is generated. There is no special level of quality of fiction that appears simply because the GM made stuff up a while ago. B) Unless you want to hard railroad there are very few game structures that work, and they all either heavily constrain the form of play, or they just lead to a sort of unfocused and mostly undramatic play. The upshot was my response to make that campaign work. Lose the focus on the elements I created and focus on what happens when the character's personalities and motives drive play. The meta-plot still existed, but like a DW front. One player had a female druid and her character spent years fighting a power struggle with the male-dominated druid hierarchy. I think I might have made 2 druid NPCs before that and had a plot point that the main group of druids was less than helpful to the local kingdom in its problem. She turned it into this whole other theme where the 'mothers' forced the hierarchy out of power etc. She even added this whole flower power thing and called her character 'Summer Twilight' etc. I don't think it was exactly like modern narrativist play but it did put character ahead of plots and any silly notion of what 'should' happen or anything like that. Oddly, that game felt much more organic and true than any other! [/QUOTE]

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