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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6179894" data-attributes="member: 42582">Can you elaborate? To me, "story focused" could mean two things - (i) the play is aimed at (re)producing a pre-authored story, or (ii) the play, as supported/yielded by the action resolution mechanics, is aimed at producing in real time the experience of a story. Personally, I associate (i) with classic 2nd ed AD&D or 90s-White Wolf railroading, and (ii) with a "modern" game like Burning Wheel.When I describe my 4e game as vanilla narrativist, I'm talking about a version of (ii).By "fiction oriented" I would think that fictional positioning is very important to action resolution. I'm inclined to think that if fictional positioning is irrelevant to action resolution, then you're not playing an RPG at all - because at that point the shared fiction has become purely epiphenomenal, as in a wargame or a collectible card game. In a game like 4e, fictional positioning is less important to resolution than in (say) Burning Wheel, for at least two reasons: (i) more rigidity of mechanical structure, especially in combat; and (ii) the use of pre-determined DCs to ensure balance/predictability/pacing in resolution, which then means that significant parts of the fiction is narrated after the event to fit the mechanically-dtermined resolution, rather than narrated in advance as an input into  the resolution. Burning Wheel, by contrast, uses "objective" DCs (ie determined by considerations of ingame fiction) and uses more ad hoc modifiers to resolution derived from a character's fictional position (and uses other devices, like Let it Ride and "fail forward" to help with balance and pacing).I don't know if my usage of the two phrases is very close to yours, but on my useage I find it easy to nominate at least one RPG (or family of RPGs) that is fiction oriented but not story focused, namely, classic D&D (OD&D, Moldvay Basic, Gygaxian AD&D and similar games). A game that is story focused but not so strongly fiction oriented would be HeroQuest revised (and perhaps also AD&D 2nd ed, if the GM fudges over the implications for resolution of fictional positioning "in the interests of the story"). A game that is both story focused and fiction oriented would be Burning Wheel. I'm not sure I can think of a game that is neither story focused nor fiction oriented - I think that is drifting away from RPG territory (perhaps some ways of playing 4e - eg those tables where fire damage doesn't set scenery alight because the keywords are not taken seriously from the point of view of fictional positioning, and in which play really is just a serious of tactical skirmishes linked by some improv roleplay - would Encounters be like this?)I don't see any particular connection between light mechanics and narrativism. Burning Wheel, for instance, is not mechanically very light, but seems pretty solidly oriented towards narrativist play. As long as the mechanical decisions that have to be made draw you into the narrative stakes, rather than push them out of consideration, I don't see the issue. Not necessarily - unless "the will of the author" includes the players. Simulationist/exploration mechanics of the sort I mentioned are (in my experience, at least) an impediment to narrativist play because they require either suspension of the action resolution mechanics (ie GM fudging) or else they draw the table's collective attention away from the narrative stakes and onto mere proceduratl minutiae.Conversely, when they are not there, transition between scenes becomes much more free - it can be done by reference to narrative considerations rather than the dictates of recovery and exploration mechanics - and this can be in the hands of the players as much as the GM: even when (as in my preferred approach) it is the GM who actually frames scenes, it can still be the players who choose what scene will be framed (eg the players decide - "OK, we're going to do this thing now because that's where the action is" and the GM then frames whatever "this thing" is).But you are right that in the sort of vanilla narrativism I'm describing, it is the will of the participants external to the resolution mechanics themselves which generate the unfolding dramatic arc.Burning Wheel and MHRP both try to build the dramatic arc (at least in general terms) into the PC build rules: BW via relationships and beliefs, MHRP via distinctions and milestones. Relationships and milestones are meant to both guide the GM in framing scenes, and push the players in both asking for and engaging scenes, to ensure the dramatic arc; and distinctions and beliefs should colour the way players have their PCs actually undertake action resolution, therefore bringing the narrative stakes into play in the course of resolving scenes. I'm not sure that's entirely external imposition - it's an attempt (via invisbile hand incentives) to have at least some elements of the dramatic arc emerge spontaneously within play.4e combat, understood in narrativist terms (which I know you're sceptical about) is meant to be a bit like this too. That is, the persona of the paladin, or the rogue, or the fighter, should emerge out of the play choices that are incentivised by the mechanical elements built into the PC. In my game I generally find this works OK (though as I've often commented, the archer ranger seems to carry a lot less thematic oomph than the other PCs) though I'm conscious that I'm designing encounters that I think will create the space/opportunities for this to happen.I hope the previous couple of paragraphs make sense, and aren't too diluted by the 4e illustration that I think you disagree with.I've always thought that this is part of the point of 4e: that there are a wide range of antagonists statted out for you in the MMs (plus its pretty easy to stat up new ones), and so you can choose from the list as you need them.Can you elaborate this a bit? There's at least two things I'm missing: Why does referencing the source of the Inspiration in play, so as to build it up, create tensions?; and, Does referencing the source of an Inspiration require fictional positioning of the PC in relation to that source, or just the player making some sort of allusion in the course of narrating a PC's action, or something else that I haven't thought of?</blockquote>

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