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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 4993946" data-attributes="member: 18280">I think that we are nearing agreement, except that I would note the following:In the Batman catches the Joker example, assuming the player is taking on the role of Batman, what the player knows is that he has all of the resources necessary to catch the Joker, assuming that he can employ them effectively.  The element of sacrifice (and the thematic component of the game) comes from the tension between the desire to avoid sacrifices (and thus preserve Batman's humanity) and the desire to employ resources effectively (and thus capture the Joker).If the player knows aforehand that Superman will swoop in if he fails, the player may still invest, but will not (I would argue, cannot) to the same degree as if the player's decisions actually determined the final outcome.In BB:RotJ, what happened to the Joker when Bruce Wayne was Batman is part of the framework of the story.  Whether or not the new Batman can stop the new Joker is very much in doubt.  It is this doubt, and the consequences for failure, that provide motivation for the good guys.  Could the new Batman know that the animator would suffer a fatal heart attack, and the cartoon terror be no more, he could have simply left the Joker alone (as Bruce Wayne wanted him to).Reading through the rules of Sufficiently Advanced, it is clear that the same is true in that game.  The players have some ability to control what elements of the game they wish to interact with (and thus have some control over what the victory conditions of any particular scenario are), but the outcome of those victory conditions is very much in doubt.The game demonstrates that the author is aware that PCs must face difficulty (doubt) about the outcome of the victory conditions in order to make the game work.  This is discussed on page 167 (Inaccessible Stories), although the author doesn't mirror the terminology I am using.  There are certain stories that are much harder to tell in Sufficiently Advanced than in other role-playing games. Some of them are much-beloved standbys of both fantasy and science fiction, so it’s worth mentioning them before you try to use them. Some are merely difficult to use; others become all but impossible to tell. A story about a journey through unknown places is exceptionally hard to do. Players often have access to wormholes, and those that do not usually have a replicator available, which which they can make motor vehicles, ultralight aircraft, or other transportation.  To tell a story that involves a lot of travel by foot, you’ll need to strand the characters without access to a replicator or the infosphere, and that’s not easy.IOW, if the players have the means to defeat the plot without being forced to interact with it, you don't have a game.Frankly, it boggles my mind that this observation is in doubt.RC</blockquote>

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