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<blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 6118391" data-attributes="member: 85870">Hmmm, I don't know how I feel about this. Nothing? No shaping at all? No culling interesting tidbits from a character's backstory, then inserting elements into the fiction that directly address that backstory? See, for me, this brings up an interesting question---does the mere act of inserting elements into the fiction regarding a character's backstory, necessarily alter that backstory? With or without a player's permission? Truthfully too, if you've had a revolving door full of players refusing to allow ANY GM force at all, no matter how mild, to affect their character's place in the fiction, then what kind of GMs are you playing with? I can see one kind of playstyle where this would be relatively &quot;accepted practice,&quot; for a highly gamist-centric playstyle, where the &quot;step on up&quot; of the challenge is the real &quot;meat&quot; of the action. In this case, a GM interfering with backstory becomes a nuisance, a way of justifying &quot;keeping those uppity powergamers down,&quot; and preventing players from accessing new magic items, gear, or powers. If a GM has some perverse desire to keep players from &quot;the awesome,&quot; and uses fictional character positioning as a way to do it, yeah, that'd get old, very very fast. But for a group looking for &quot;narrativism,&quot; in the sense of really exploring a moral &quot;premise,&quot; then as a player you almost HAVE to cede some control of your character fiction to the GM. In so saying, I'm not advocating that this should be heavy-handed, punitive control. But the GM naturally has a better idea of the entirety of &quot;the fiction&quot; than the player, and may understand interesting ways to juxtapose the character's assumed fiction into the world's fiction that the player simply has no conception of. I think FATE's concept of &quot;tagging&quot; is very much a back-and-forth of this nature--who has control of what elements of the fiction at any given moment? It actively moves between player and GM. For &quot;simulationist&quot; play, it can go either way---If the player and GM agree on basic character backstory, then &quot;natural consequences&quot; are bound to arise in play, based on character actions / reactions, and NPC actions / reactions, and I think most players are okay, and regularly enjoy it when it happens. That said, you run into the danger of a GM saying, &quot;No, that backstory's not possible because it doesn't fit the 'authenticity' of the fiction.&quot; But if that's what the player's interested in exploring, the GM should find ways to work with the player to make that possible. Bottom line: it's about GM trust.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="innerdude, post: 6118391, member: 85870"] Hmmm, I don't know how I feel about this. Nothing? No shaping at all? No culling interesting tidbits from a character's backstory, then inserting elements into the fiction that directly address that backstory? See, for me, this brings up an interesting question---does the mere act of inserting elements into the fiction regarding a character's backstory, necessarily alter that backstory? With or without a player's permission? Truthfully too, if you've had a revolving door full of players refusing to allow ANY GM force at all, no matter how mild, to affect their character's place in the fiction, then what kind of GMs are you playing with? I can see one kind of playstyle where this would be relatively "accepted practice," for a highly gamist-centric playstyle, where the "step on up" of the challenge is the real "meat" of the action. In this case, a GM interfering with backstory becomes a nuisance, a way of justifying "keeping those uppity powergamers down," and preventing players from accessing new magic items, gear, or powers. If a GM has some perverse desire to keep players from "the awesome," and uses fictional character positioning as a way to do it, yeah, that'd get old, very very fast. But for a group looking for "narrativism," in the sense of really exploring a moral "premise," then as a player you almost HAVE to cede some control of your character fiction to the GM. In so saying, I'm not advocating that this should be heavy-handed, punitive control. But the GM naturally has a better idea of the entirety of "the fiction" than the player, and may understand interesting ways to juxtapose the character's assumed fiction into the world's fiction that the player simply has no conception of. I think FATE's concept of "tagging" is very much a back-and-forth of this nature--who has control of what elements of the fiction at any given moment? It actively moves between player and GM. For "simulationist" play, it can go either way---If the player and GM agree on basic character backstory, then "natural consequences" are bound to arise in play, based on character actions / reactions, and NPC actions / reactions, and I think most players are okay, and regularly enjoy it when it happens. That said, you run into the danger of a GM saying, "No, that backstory's not possible because it doesn't fit the 'authenticity' of the fiction." But if that's what the player's interested in exploring, the GM should find ways to work with the player to make that possible. Bottom line: it's about GM trust. [/QUOTE]

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