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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6124241" data-attributes="member: 4937">The reason that I've largely given up on this thread is that not only have I given up on being understood, but I've given up believing that I'm being defamed as a result of a misunderstanding.My comments in that other thread are intended to deal with a very specific situation, a situation which - I might add, I was called out by Innerdude as having a somewhat penetrating insight into.   It is however not a general rule I have advanced there or anywhere else that all table talk should be IC (though a surprising number of problems are solved by first addressing them in the fiction and understanding them through the fiction rather than turning them into personal conflicts between people).  For example, in the case we are discussing in this thread where Hussar wants to hand wave a scene he (as a player) is not interested in, I specifically said that since that is a player issue (as opposed to a character issue) that involved process of play it would be better to address it OOC rather than IC with some sort of 'signal'.  Clearly since I've stated that repeatedly then I'm not opposed to OOC negotiation or talk, and I think I've made that too bloody well obvious to be misunderstood except willfully.  Obviously, there are going to be complicated things which are both character and player issues (ex "It may be right for your character but it makes me the player uncomfortable") and that requires senstive and complicated handling, but as a general rule what I'm advancing is that character issues should be dealt with IC and player issues should generally be deal with OOC.  If that isn't what you do, and it works for you, then I'm fine with that.  But what I have been responding to has not been posts about how 'What I'm doing is working perfectly for me', but giving pragmatic advice when clearly some approach wasn't working perfectly (in Hussar's case the DM's temper flared, possibly Hussar's temper flared, and he soon after left the game).<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> I'm not even entirely sure what you mean by that.  What does 'use of a story element' mean here?   I'm often feeling like I'm arguing with Humpty Dumpty here, in that by 'framing of a scene', you don't mean 'framing of a scene' but rather 'framing of a scene as I use the term' which as far as I can tell isn't even how FORGE uses the term but some special pemertonian meaning.   I'm sure this makes sense in your head, but I don't get either what you are trying to say or why you see this as a reoccuring assumption.  I think I've proved repeatedly though this thread that I can 'frame a scene' and specifically 'frame a scene' in such a way as to heighten dramatic tension and address character backstory and goals (if you don't do those things, its still 'scene framing' its just not a particular sort of highly desirable scene framing, for example with both seem to agree that you can frame a 'transition scene').  Explain now what you mean by 'use a story element'. Wait?  That's a common assumption?  Where? Who here has suggested player agency is different from no player agency?   Who here has suggested proposition is different than inquiry?  For that matter the phrase 'try and change the ingame fiction' is a ludicrously broad phrase that covers all sorts of things, from engaging the fiction through process to changing the fiction outright through authority over story.   What do you mean other than 'badwrongfun' when you declare you've found this assumption that bears as far as I can tell no relationship at all to my thoughts?  'fictional positioning'?  [sarcasm]Could you perhaps use a broader and more generic concept?[/sarcasm].   I know what 'fictional posititioning' is, I just have no idea what it has to do with what you are trying to say, or how the examples you are citing actually change the players idea of their fictional positioning.   My idea of fictional positioning is something like, "I'm on the back of a monstrous centipede in the Abyss, and I'm holding a barrel of tar and feather duster.  (What can I use this tar for?)"  Is 'wondering how it is going to change the dynamics of interacting with the city' really all that different than 'wondering what is going on'?  Either way, the players now must deal with your complication, gain information about the scene you've framed, and figure out how to resolve it.   Explain what this 'crucial difference' is, please.   I would see it as a crucial difference if you didn't have to "deal with your complication, gain information about the scene you've framed, and figure out how to resolve it" but instead could simply reframe the fiction.  I don't see the crucial difference you see.  Maybe it's there, but in 30 pages or more, you've not explained it in a way I can understand.  If the game allows for, "Player #1: However, disease has broken out in the camp.  Morale is low.  It's clear the besiegers are weary of the seige.  Even as we observe them, we see them breaking camp and leaving.", this is a marked difference and shows that the game has put real scene framing and possibly even setting backstory authority into the hands of a player.  However, I don't see anyone suggesting how such a game could be easily adopted to D&D given that D&D has no mechanics for negotiating story authority between the participants nor do I see anyone emphaticly suggesting that as a general rule they run their game that way.  In fact, Hussar has firmly suggested otherwise - that such player initiated scene reframing to handwave a complication be an extraordinary rather than reutine event, and you've provided no examples of this actually happening in your games much less reutinely.  Continually calling black 'white' won't make it so. Depends I guess on what you mean by 'being surprised', since so much of this seems to evolved to arguments over the meaning of words.  I certainly agree that if the GM doesn't have sole control over backstory and introduction of story elements, he can still be surprised.  Those elements could be and often are surprising.  On the other hand, I don't see a lot of evidence of anyone in this thread giving players more control over backstory and story elements than is generally common in my experience.   Certainly no one here is suggesting that the players create the seige and its backstory, and the essay you keep linking to actually advocates against doing that very thing ('niave conch passing').  Even the sort of play which I agreed was different than the way I'd play it*, the poster was not not leaving the introduction of story elements to the players, merely creating a scene with story elements of his own devising in response to percieved player interest (genericly, in a 'chase scene').  I'm pretty sure the way play is constructed at his table is not, "Wouldn't it be cool if I was chased by wild dogs.", although of course you could play a game that way and it would be perfectly valid and would work albiet you'd probably need to invent a framework for controlling the conch because one doesn't exist in D&D in any edition. My assumption here is quite different than you seem to think it is.   My assumption here is you keep thumping this hammer about 'GM having sole control over backstory and introduction of story elements' and throwing around terms like 'scene framing' but you don't even know what you are talking about.  It's just a good thumping point for hitting people with if they disagree with you, that is suitably 'big picture' that it evades any specific criticism and suitably 'trendy' that it makes one feel good about themselves to say it.  It really isn't the central issue in this thread  or any of the examples therein.  No one for example has suggested that it would be perfectly reasonable for Hussar to invent a hitherto unnoted in the fiction Gold Dragon ally to incinerate the Grell, nor for Hussar to invent a hitherto unnoted ring of wishes to wish his way across the desert.   For some styles of play, that's perfectly valid and interesting and for some games the player is empowered to do things just like that without expectation of GM overruling him - but not for any actually relevant to this discussion.  Here's the thing; what I don't think you can integrate into this mental model of me successfully is that in the specific 'centipede' example, I've already said (once I got all the details clear) that had I been the DM, and had I been running that particular adventure, and had Hussar's binder been able to summon a centipede mount, that I would have brushed across the organic wastes in 5-10 minutes of play and arrived at the crumbling Cathedral with no additional complication, and further that not only would I have 'allowed' Hussar to do it but that I would have been happy about the prospect.  That fact just completely destroys this fictional Celebrim you find so useful, you keep bringing him into the conversation long after the real Celebrim has been any sort of regular part of it.   Please refrain in the future from confusing fictional Celebrim and the assumptions you've invented about him with real Celebrim.  As usual, if you find an assumption 'odd' or 'illogical', chances are its because the other person doesn't hold it.  Thanks.</li> </ul></blockquote>

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