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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 9080737" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Extremely time limited, so a focused response on just a few things that you can engage with if you'd like.There can be no doubt about this.  From the very first time I interacted with you through this conversation, this has been abundantly clear.If these priors were a flag that you planted on earth, it would be visible from Neptune!By contrast to Story Now GMing, the vast majority of content in these games is GM-led, not player-led.  The GM devises the premise of the game and sites the protagonism via what:(i) they "pre-load" (that phrasing!) the setting with...(ii) what they load their encounter tables or events tables with and how they mathematically devise the distribution of such events when rolled...(iia) what conditions they decide triggers encounter or events table rolls(iib) whether they decide encounter/events tables results should be ignored and subbed with an alternative, GM-chosen response or re-rolled(iic) whether their procedure for any of the above is stable and predictable or whether its malleable and unpredictable whereby the GM decides on variance within triggers/results etc,,,(iii) what they decide players know and can act upon vs what they don't know and is therefore degenerate metagaming...(iv) what they outright decide happens with their abundance of unconstrained authority over "yes," "no", and "when to roll the dice"...(v) "how that 'when to roll the dice' resolution is executed mechanically."  And if their play isn't table-facing (an absolute abundance of it is not)...(vi) whether they decide to manipulate results covertly "for the betterment of the game because this aspect of the game engine can deliver problematic (for whatever value of problematic is considered injurious to play by the GM) results and needs in-situ patching" (which is also at their discretion).That is an enormous amount of "whatever crap they want to" period and definitely by contrast to an alternative model.And its a feature of the style.  Lets not pretend that the above isn't fundamental and that GMs and players don't consider the above a feature.Yes, its a bug in alternative models of play, but that is just a clear, dividing line between the two (the kind of line that is a confounder to your "visible from Neptune" flag!).Oh no, I quite meant sterile in the "type of framing where intentionally provocative toward propagating good (like offspring) or ill (like bacteria) content is fundamentally off the table."  GM framing is meant to be considerably more neutral and the systems aren't possessed of PC build flags, action resolution widgets & levers (perhaps some of them meta), and reward cycles that expect/demand active, provocative GM framing and active, direct, explosive player moves to both direct GM framing and respond to obstacles/situations/consequences to generate a positive feedback loop of engagement with and resolution of this provoked content (provoked by the system to all the participants with the game engine and the game's premise > then provoked by the players onto the GM via PC build flags and overt blank-filling and answers during conversation > then provoked by GMs in their situation/obstacle-framing > then provoked by players in their decision-tree navigation and action declarations > then provoked by GMs in their consequence management > then provoked by players or the group at large when they manage the reward cycles/reflection aspect of play > rinse: repeat).I meant sterile.  I meant neutral.  I meant "not provocative."  You know what you see when Simulationist/Sandbox-inclined players (all participants) get a whiff of the inverse?  You get an abundance of statements like this (of which you've been exposed to this over and over on here...and if you run in any other circles or visit any other boards you see it in abundance there):* Contrivance.* Unsatisfying to immersion perspectives (priorities)* Cliche'* Violation of internal causality (because of a conception that "what is onscreen" must follow some kind of frequency of "sterile x 9" + "provocative x 1" lest it be degenerate from a causality perspective)* All fun/cool/action all the time = No fun/cool/actionThis_commentary_is_everywhere.  There is no way...none...that you or anyone else has missed it.  This lament is as lamenty as laments get.So sterile, neutral, not provocative or bust (bust being any of my bullet points above or any of the other denouncements of provocative framing and game engines where provocative framing > equally provocative/in-your-face response by players) is exactly what I meant.And here is the thing.  You see this when you run games for players who aren't used to this.  They have no idea how to resopnd to aggressive, provocative GM framing.  They turtle-up or they opt-out of even doing anything in response.  Their gut instinct is "why is the GM being so aggressive and demanding big, bold action from me...that feels adversarial...I'm going to flip-the-script and not engage...I'm basically going to do nothing!"  They expect to passively explore/wander (I've called this "Setting Tourism" in the past and we've seen robert conley called this "like a real world trip" upthread, I believe...same exact thing paradigmatically).  Their instinct is to actively "not play" as a response to aggressive, provocative GM framing (which is fundamentally going against "the player meta" of these games where everyone plays to the game's premise, you signal to the GM your dramatic needs, then the GM has framing rights to engage with those two things aggressively and you respond with aggression in-kind).So yeah.  I mean exactly what I'm saying above.  You see it in the organizing principles for Sim/Sandbox GMing.  You see it in the organizing principles for Sim/Sandbox players playing.  And you absolutely see it when you throw a Sim/Sandbox-oriented player into a game which features a fundamentally alternate paradigm (system meta, GM meta, player meta).EDIT:  For (i-vi) list above</blockquote>

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