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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9031807" data-attributes="member: 42582">OK, this is a thing we can talk about! It's a real goal of play. Of the various posters in this thread, I know that [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER] is into it (at least from time to time). And a few years ago, I posted <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/classic-traveller-more-actual-play.676769/" target="_blank">some Classic Traveller actual play</a> where, for a couple of sessions, the game had become focused on this sort of exploration. (I'm not super into it, and so - as those play reports indicate - I, as GM, tried to push the exploration towards something different in play.)It seems to me, based on both experience and conjecture, that there are GM techniques and principles that are helpful and unhelpful for this sort of play. Upthread I even suggested some. Based on my experience as both player and GM, I think the two most important issues - as in, things that can cause this sort of play to fall over if not handled with care - are the role of secret backstory, and the related issue of how non-static the fictional situation can be, yet still amenable to exploration by the players. These are related, because a common way for a GM to reduce stasis is to draw on secret backstory. But the implications of this for exploration by the players are that, the more everything the players are being told is an expression or consequence of stuff known only to the GM, which is changing beneath the surface, the harder for them to draw sound inferences, to use &quot;levers&quot; in the fiction to change or reveal things, etc.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 9031807, member: 42582"] OK, this is a thing we can talk about! It's a real goal of play. Of the various posters in this thread, I know that [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER] is into it (at least from time to time). And a few years ago, I posted [url=https://www.enworld.org/threads/classic-traveller-more-actual-play.676769/]some Classic Traveller actual play[/url] where, for a couple of sessions, the game had become focused on this sort of exploration. (I'm not super into it, and so - as those play reports indicate - I, as GM, tried to push the exploration towards something different in play.) It seems to me, based on both experience and conjecture, that there are GM techniques and principles that are helpful and unhelpful for this sort of play. Upthread I even suggested some. Based on my experience as both player and GM, I think the two most important issues - as in, things that can cause this sort of play to fall over if not handled with care - are [I]the role of secret backstory[/I], and the related issue of [I]how non-static the fictional situation can be, yet still amenable to exploration by the players[/I]. These are related, because a common way for a GM to reduce stasis is to draw on secret backstory. But the implications of this for exploration by the players are that, the more everything the players are being told is an expression or consequence of stuff known only to the GM, which is changing beneath the surface, the harder for them to draw sound inferences, to use "levers" in the fiction to change or reveal things, etc. [/QUOTE]

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