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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9032413" data-attributes="member: 42582">[USER=71699]@clearstream[/USER], you have referred multiple times in recent posts to this earlier post of yours:This seems to deal primarily with action declarations - which is what I take the "descriptions" to be. Maybe descriptions are also supposed to include descriptions of consequences?In any event, this "partial lens" doesn't seem to say anything about allocations of roles (eg player vs GM), nor about who has what sort of "ownership" of what sort of stuff. A single-player storytelling game could be set up that follows your pattern.This is because, with the symbols stripped out, your 1 to 4 are: a rule tells us what to say next ("consequence"), given what has been said ("description"), including how to choose among different possible things to say next. That is an extremely partial description of RPGing rules. In fact I think it's pretty radically incomplete.This is just reiteration that rules tell us what to say happens next, given what has happened so far. Whether or not they "invite descriptions that would otherwise not occur" depends entirely on what the rules actually are. A rule that says "say whatever you like", or even "say whatever you like provided it follows from the fiction" doesn't seem like it will do that. The rule has be more precise, and to impose constraints that will produce things independently of what would otherwise be decided by the person the rule governs - which is also where participant roles start to matter (eg "Tell the other participant something they won't enjoy hearing, given their orientation to the fiction.")This seems to be a trivial consequence of the failure to say anything about rules that differentiates RPGing from any other rule-governed storytelling activity.Once we take seriously that the rules are rules for RPGing, it is not obvious that lay can be such that it does not, by its very nature, place specific people front and centre. This would need to be shown, and hasn't yet been shown. All the attempts to show it involve characterising one person writing fiction on their own (eg GM authoring setting; or player authoring PC backstory) as engaged in RPGing. Which is at best a highly contentious description of such activity!As my quote of the post just above makes clear, you did not make such a proposal. You used the phrase "norm/rule", which implies a type of synonymy or at least functional interchangeability of the two notions.I don't know what such a proposal would look like, given that norms and rules are similar things. It seems therefore to be a proposal that norms override and extend norms, or perhaps that rules override and extend rules. (There are other sorts of norms beside rules, at least in some accounts - eg principles, standards etc. I don't think I've seen an argument yet that drawing those sorts of distinctions is helpful for understanding RPGing.) As I've already posted, with reference to Suits and other philosophers in that sort of tradition, there are various approaches to this: eg the rule "things fall when not supported by a solid object" is really an oversimplification, and the true rule includes a caveat ("unless suspended by some other force, such as magnetism"). In some contexts it may make sense to talk about power conferring rules, which permit the rule-wielder to change other rules. I've already explained why I think that is not a useful analysis of rule zero, which is better analogised to Hart's "scorer's discretion" - ie it is a permission conferred on the GM to say whatever they like when it comes to them to say what happens next.Again, whatever you have in mind here, your post does not say that, and I don't think it implies it either.But in any event: the only way that I can make sense of your reply to [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER] is that you are meaning by "norm" something like what I the GM feel might happen next given ideas about what the setting is like, how a given NPC feels, etc. And then by "rule" you mean a rule of the game that tells the GM they must have regard to some other constraint in saying what happens next. That would be a very idiosyncratic use of "norm" - but if that's not what is meant, then I can't make sense of your post at all.I have quoted your post just above. It does not use the word "mechanics", and it does not say anything about RPG mechanics, let alone something universally true about those mechanics. The only thing it says in the neighbourhood of mechanics is that in many RPGs dice play a roll in selecting between consequences. This is banal, and tells us nothing at all about (eg) the difference between no-myth and "yes-myth" RPGing, nor about the differences between playing (say) AW or DW as written, and the DL modules as written.What makes a game no-myth is what I, and [USER=7027139]@loverdrive[/USER], and [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER], and [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER] have stated: that the GM is not allowed to "say 'no'" or to make hard moves or to otherwise narrate states of the fiction that defeat that players' aspiration for their PCs simply by reference to pre-authored, secret fiction. loverdrive gave a clear example of "yes myth": the GM decides that the attempt to trick the sister by imitating the brother fails, because the sister hates the brother). I gave a clear example als0: the GM decides that the attempt to trick the starship captain by faking a distress signal fails, because the starship captain always follows certain protocols that preclude taking the PCs onboard his vessel.Of course the contrast between this, and no myth, doesn't come out in your post 709 because your post 709 doesn't drill down into the relevant features of RPG rules! All it notes is that "rules direct or perhaps even dictate what to say next, given what was said previously" and of course both no myth and "yes myth" RPGing exemplify this. But the fact that you have not described any difference between them doesn't mean that there is no difference that can be described. Several of us have done that.And as I and Campbell and AbdulAlhazred have expressly stated, and as I think loverdrive has implied, for no myth to work, there must be a way of working out what happens next other than by referring to pre-authored, secret fiction. This is what the rules, including the mechanics, are for. In DW/AW, the rules are if the mechanics aren't triggered, the GM can only make soft moves unless a golden opportunity is given. In BW, the rule is if the mechanics aren't triggered, the GM must say "yes". The mechanics, in turn, provide rules for working out what happens next other than by simply referring to pre-authored, secret fiction. Eg if in BW the player succeeds on the Falsehood or Persuasion check with the intent to persuade the NPC, then the NPC goes along with what the PC wanted them to do: the GM cannot appeal to pre-authored, secret fiction ("the sister hates her brother" or "the captain never departs from protocols") and thus insist on saying that something different happens next.This is a pretty clear distinction.</blockquote>

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