Access to the inner world of characters

[Johannes]

OK. So it is a peculiar case of indirect access which can have an impact on the in-game reality or not. It's up to the players but the systems encourages it to have the impact. Am I right here?

This is a interesting technique which has a name in literary theory: narrative metalepsis. That is discourse that is spoken across the borders of levels of reality/discourse. Fictional characters speaking to the narrator or implied reader or narrator speaking to the characters or implied reader etc.

In RPGs it has tremendous potential which is illustrated by InSpectres: Narrative metalepsis can affect the work in progress. This is of course very different from printed media where the story is already set and the metalepsis in one-way so to speak. In a book metalepsis is a communicative metafictional techinque butr in RPGs it's a creative/productive meta-game technique.

Avant-garde postmodern litterature is childs play compared to this. Damn I love these games! Isn't it interesting that the greatest leaps in story-telling are happening in an unprestigeous subculture and not in the high circles of "art"? Grass roots movement of gamers is subverting the pompous cultural snob intitutions of art in a carnival of new narrative. Forget the "postmodern"! Forget the hypertext! This is where it is happening. Kill the audience/artist dichotomy! Gamers of the world unite againts the opression of ... of .. - well unite anyway!