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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6121384" data-attributes="member: 42582">Right. Stuff that happens before play isn't a restriction on agency during play. It's in the same general category as deciding what sort of genre or setting to play.The characters can have deep, dark secrets. But the players are sharing.And it's not really a restriction on player agency. It doesn't contrain what a player can do in play. But you are correct that it changes the aesthetics of play.That's fine. Your preferences aren't under attack, here. But you did ask how a GM, or the group more generally, is meant to know what the players want if the game is meant to go the sort of way that Hussar and I have talked about. And we're answering that question. No one is asking you to play that way.I'm a little less confident now in speaking for [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION], because I don't use his style of "group template".But in my preferred approach, what comes out in play is not background, but new developments and responses to past background. So the reveals in play are about character transformations, not character histories. This has actually become a topic of discussion in the current "So what's wrong with restrictions for paladins?" thread.The GM's role in dispensing information is interesting and important. It was discussed quite a bit upthread, particularly by [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]. My own approach is to reveal enough backstory to allow the playes to integrate their PCs and to make significant choices, but also to leave room for reveals.Of course not. But the medium is different. A movie doesn't have the audience also as authors. Whereas the sort of RPGing I enjoy does.</blockquote>

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