I'm interested in this:

Quote:

The GM would say that he writes the story and the players would say that they play their characters however they wish. Neither side may realize all the unconscious limitations they put on their actions so as to fit together.

I'm amazed by the idea that this would be considered 'unconscious.'

In my play this is, in fact, pretty conscious in the sense that I expect to be constrained by situation and expect that any legitimate action will be accepted even if it makes for 'a worse story' (but, you know, if I felt that doing something would ruin the GM's fun, I'd consider not doing it for obvious and conscious reasons).

In the games I've written up, I think that in an RPG context it is very fair and perhaps even correct to say that the GM is the author and the players are the protagonists.

I say this is *correct* because of the conscious working-together within different roles that produces the play. It's the Impossible Thing in action.

Hi Jaik,

Make sense? Reaction?

Hi Aaron,

How about "The GM AND the players have input"? The extremes you are talking about involve at least one person having no input whatsoever, and that doesn't work at all.

"Being in charge of" works only if we break it down to various subtasks and give authority to the various folks in the group. For example, authority over the creation/introduction of conflict and control over NPCs actions and reactions, while authority over PC actions is completely different, there is no conflict. But if two different groups are both expected to have authority over the same thing(PC decisions) and there is no means of negotiation, problems occur.

TITBB falls down because it states that the players AND the GM both have authority over the same things, at the same time.

The constraints that we're dealing with is that if everyone has input(though probably not over the same things or same degree), it is that we(as a group), through our choices in play, form the constraints for ourselves as individuals. This is just a fact of playing in a group.

That is to say, if all the players have authority over the actions of their characters, I have to be ok with it if Bill decides his character, Qaazar the elf wants to jump off a cliff. Bill also has to be ok if I decide to invoke the game's mechanics to try to have Matarus the ranger grab Qaazar before he falls. And if we have these rights or authority, the GM also has to be ok with our decisions and the outcome thereof. This is no different than the rules of Monopoly that says Player A can buy property X if he or she lands on it AND can pay for it, and everyone playing has to accept that as part of the way the game works.

The thing is- constraints are what give gameplay direction, whether we're talking about the constraints advised in the game manual from system to setting ideas, to the actual constraints created by the group as a whole during play itself. Some folks are very good at creating direction, some folks are good at supporting the directions that others have created.

Again, the issue is that TITTB doesn't work without serious doublethink happening. The usual two actualities are:

"The GM is in control of the story(except what the players input on and the actual outcome, um, which I guess means he's not really in control at all, but just giving input) and the players can do what they want(as long as they accept the input of each other and the GM)."

OR

"The GM is in control of the story(except the color created by the players, over which they have input) and the players can do what they want(as long as its what the GM wants, otherwise they have to figure out a way to get the GM to want what they want, or just give up, which I guess means they can't really do what they want)".

Even these two methods of play are functional, though TITBB is not.

Chris

I should probably clarify my 99.9% claim. I'm saying that .1% of games take place at either extreme total. I mean the EXTREME, as in the DM dictating EVERY action, with the players providing dice-rolling (but not interpretation) and dialogue (but only saying what the DM tells them to say). I mentioned script and I meant it. The other end would be complete chaos, with every player narrating whatever they felt like, independant and simultaneous with one another. Multiple stream-of-consciousness RP with the GM as a harried...person (words fail me)...desperately trying to keep up.

I can't see a bit of fun in either of those, thus .1% is probably way too much, but more 9's starts to look silly.

My guess that the majority of mainstream play is on the "GM controls" half is derived from standard GM lore and standard advice you'll find in the ubiquitous "How to run the game" section of the rulebook.

Now, to your points.

The reason I'm using this example is because I've always wondered how it was ever considered functional play when the GM acted to dictate his 99% of the story and a player--in the spirit of cooperation and respect--acted outside the GM's guideline and the GM 'reigned him in.'

Where I saw this, it always devolved instantly into dysfunction. Players who were met with disrespect or no cooperation usually, IME, know it, and this mode of play doesn't work.

If you tell me about a great game where you let the GM make all the decisions, cool--but I bet that (a) you agreed to that standard and (b) the GM was making decisions that kept you entertained and (c) the GM respected you. With (a) and (b) there is only the illusion that the player is disempowered. Without (c) you have a player who says he was walked on by someone who didn't respect him but still enjoyed play

When you tell me about the game that's 99% player driven, I ask if it looks like my Private Detective example because if it doesn't (if the players are still constrained by the imaginary reality of the game-world) then the GM is, IME, far from a 1% participant.

In this case, if both parties respect each other and cooperate, however it works out, assuming that no one *has* to have their way but is willing to cooperate with the other party, the solution will be conscious.

Bankuei wrote: Hi Aaron,

How about "The GM AND the players have input"? The extremes you are talking about involve at least one person having no input whatsoever, and that doesn't work at all.

Bankuei wrote:

TITBB falls down because it states that the players AND the GM both have authority over the same things, at the same time.

Hi Aaron,

I wasn't accusing you of saying those things, I was agreeing and putting forth some details about the hows and whys of the dysfunctional extremes along with the hows and hows and whys of the functional ground. I apologize if I came off attacking you in any way. I was hoping to post detail for anyone reading who might want to make that shift from unconsciously playing in(mostly likely) a functional manner while claiming TITBB, and seeing what's really going on.

The aspect of group input providing limitations and direction I think is most pertinent to your experiences.

Chris

Hey Aaron,

I wasn't clear about what I meant (although it wasn't a big deal): if someone claims their game is 99.9% player-driven I would expect it to look like my Private Detective Game--but where the player does grow the wings in real life in contravention of genre--that is, the player is not constrained by anything the GM says or does nor by the game world nor the character's (initially) imagined constraints.

As I said, I don't think many games look like that--but when people talk about player-driven games or protagonization I find that I usually have a very big question about what the role of pre-established situation or hidden information plays in the constraints on their actions.

I don't, for example, consider it inherently disempowering to a player for a GM to say "that didn't work" due to hidden information the GM had decided on ahead of time (and I mean this in the sense of the GM having, say a map the players don't and the player declaring "I go north and find the King!" when the king is listed in being to the south).

Jaik wrote:
Do you think that one side of the spectrum lends itself to ingraining its style of playing more quickly than another, or more solidly?

if someone claims their game is 99.9% player-driven I would expect it to look like my Private Detective Game--but where the player does grow the wings in real life in contravention of genre--that is, the player is not constrained by anything the GM says or does nor by the game world nor the character's (initially) imagined constraints.

Is this perhaps the difference between "player driven" and "player controlled"?

This is one of those threads that appeared and exploded in all directions overnight, so I'm trying to put together a somewhat cohesive response from fragments; I hope I'm not misunderstanding something.

Marco wrote: (If you tell me about a great game where you let the GM make all the decisions, cool--but I bet that (a) you agreed to that standard and (b) the GM was making decisions that kept you entertained and (c) the GM respected you. With (a) and (b) there is only the illusion that the player is disempowered. Without (c) you have a player who says he was walked on by someone who didn't respect him but still enjoyed play).

Marco also wrote: When you tell me about the game that's 99% player driven, I ask if it looks like my Private Detective example because if it doesn't (if the players are still constrained by the imaginary reality of the game-world) then the GM is, IME, far from a 1% participant.

Valamir wrote:

if someone claims their game is 99.9% player-driven I would expect it to look like my Private Detective Game--but where the player does grow the wings in real life in contravention of genre--that is, the player is not constrained by anything the GM says or does nor by the game world nor the character's (initially) imagined constraints.

I don't know why you would conclude that Marco. How do you make the leap from "play my character" to "spontaneously invent Super Powers"?

The Impossible Thing pits Players ability to control their character against the GMs ability to control the story. No where has "player's play their character" been suggested to mean "players can say absolutely anything they want without being questioned" That's a false dichotomy you're putting up there.

M. J. Young wrote: This is one of those threads that appeared and exploded in all directions overnight, so I'm trying to put together a somewhat cohesive response from fragments; I hope I'm not misunderstanding something.

Marco also wrote: When you tell me about the game that's 99% player driven, I ask if it looks like my Private Detective example because if it doesn't (if the players are still constrained by the imaginary reality of the game-world) then the GM is, IME, far from a 1% participant.

I think you've made an assertion here that does not hold: that the referee alone is responsible for constraints placed on the players by the imaginary reality of the game world. If we've sat down to play a film noir detective piece and one of the players announces that he's going to grow wings and fly to the top of the building, it's entirely likely that the other character players will say, "You can't do that, quit joking around." The fact that games like Legends of Alyria can be played entirely without a referee (despite a highly complex setting) tells us that the constraints of setting may impact the players without any input from the referee whatsoever.

Marco wrote: Thesis: I submit that in the traditional open-model the GM does most of the work on Situation* which includes running the world. If the player can "control their character" in any way they want, but are still constrained by situation, which the GM, IMO, is responsible for controling in anything resembling open-ended traditional roleplaying, then saying that the player has as much or the same kind of input over the game as the GM is IMO, wrong.

Marco wrote: Therefore: If I tell you that you can play your character however you want and early on I have my NPC's ambush you and (using all the rules and from a reasonable series of events) knock you out and stick you on a freighter bound for Bangcock, are you going to tell me that your ability to "play your character" has given you control over the direction of the game?

Hi John,

Before getting into this specifically, I wanted to be clear about what I'm thinking (your post did lead me to consider and re-consider my position in responding to it).

Firstly: I'd have thought that what an open-ended game meant was pretty intuitive and obviously that's not so (and since I don't personally run modules very often, I think that's why I hadn't thought much about that). So in a sense this is an eye-opener for me. I'll give you a good deal more description about what I meant.

Secondly: If we are talking about "who controls the game" from the standpoint of traditional Player-GM play in reference to The Impossible Thing then I think there are two fundamental takes on what "control of the game means."

Some people will tell you that if 'things happen to their characters' they aren't in control of the game. You say that just by controling how your character acts you have a lot of power over the story. I had suggested that once and been told that if I was doing that, I was 'just adding color to the GM's story' (the general turn of phrase for a player who has control of his reactions but doesn't, in some larger sense, direct the plot).
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=7447&highlight=pulp+fiction#7447

Others, as you've said, point out that depending on what one means by control, a character's reaction to events can be the meaninful measure.

The question will come down to what your standard is for "having control" or "having input" (if you meet my tragic situation with Buffy-esque quips, on can say you have taken the gravitas out of it--but if the characters the tragic situation was aimed at still all die then one can say that I, as the GM, have controlled the story).

So that seems to be a matter of opinion. Certainly most people would say the GM runs the world and the PC's run their characters isn't impossible but people regularly come here and say "I tried it and, of course, it failed--it's impossible."

Clearly the measure being in control of the game varries a lot from person to person.

John Kim wrote:
Well, this depends on the definition of "open-ended traditional roleplaying". I haven't seen a concrete definition of it, so I have to guess a bit. From earlier discussion, you seem to agree this doesn't include, for example, D&D module play. It also doesn't seem include most of the rgfa Simulationist play which I'm used to (cf. <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=6178">Plotless but Background-based Games and <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8812">Open Play for the Soul). So what exactly is it?

I would tend to say that "traditional roleplaying" means that the players control their PCs, while the GM controls the rest of the background and world. Given this setup, it seems to me that the control of direction is straightforward. The more that the PCs are pawns of their environment, the more dominant the GM is likely to be. Conversely, if the PCs are powerful, well-informed, and free relative to their environment, then the players are more likely to be dominant.

As Aaron said in his first post, it seems that there is a smooth spectrum between these. At one extreme, you could have a near-LARP-like scenario -- i.e. there are no NPCs, and thus most of the action is interaction between the players/PCs. The GM is mostly watching. At the other extreme would be, say, scenarios where the PCs are brainwashed agents who get their mission orders from some NPC authority, and the players are just trying to fulfill their orders as best they can.

John Kim wrote:
Well, first of all, yes. I do have considerable power over the direction of the *story*. Depending on how you define "game", maybe that is in the GM's hands (i.e. the GM can "beat" the PCs, no contest). But the story does not consist of what the location is, or even whether the good guys wins. By playing my character, I can make this situation range from Monty-Python-esque comedy (trading quips against the GM's straight men) to dramatic psychological revelation (a lot of dialogue or monologue about how this feels).

Even if he isn't literally holding a published module in his hand, the GM may decide not to arbitrarily invent things to capture the PCs and drag them to where he wants them. The GM may instead portray a reactive environment, while the players/PCs are proactive in setting up situations and conflicts.

Marco wrote:

John Kim wrote: As Aaron said in his first post, it seems that there is a smooth spectrum between these. At one extreme, you could have a near-LARP-like scenario -- i.e. there are no NPCs, and thus most of the action is interaction between the players/PCs. The GM is mostly watching. At the other extreme would be, say, scenarios where the PCs are brainwashed agents who get their mission orders from some NPC authority, and the players are just trying to fulfill their orders as best they can.

John Kim wrote: Even if he isn't literally holding a published module in his hand, the GM may decide not to arbitrarily invent things to capture the PCs and drag them to where he wants them. The GM may instead portray a reactive environment, while the players/PCs are proactive in setting up situations and conflicts.

Right--and if the players are pro-active then the game is more "player driven" than if they are reactive or if the GM sends goons to get them all the time.

As I said, though, when the world responds (and if the game continues) keeps responding, this condition is going to be far from 99% Player, 1% GM in terms of who inputs what into the game.

In my V:tM game the players decided to take over local (human) organized crime--as the GM, I would say they set up that conflict and took proactive action (it was a surprise to me)--but once that happened the input was a lot closer to 50-50 than 99-1. Certainly than 99.9-.1.

Crime hit back. Even when the PC's were on the offense, I had to determine what I thought was reasonable for them to encounter and who various bosses were and how they'd react and so on.

John Kim wrote:
OK, it sounds like in your game, the PCs were a relatively unified force, and the primary external conflict was the PCs vs your NPCs. (It's pretty darn common.) Given that as a basic assumption, then yes, the split of control is going to tend towards 50-50.

I suspect you're treating that as being inherent, though, rather than as a very common practice. As I said, I expect the 99.9% player-directed extreme would be LARP-like. i.e. There aren't NPC opponents, but rather PC-vs-PC conflicts. Imagine if in your game, some of the players were controlling organized crime and some of them were controlling the vampires.

Given that organized crime were NPCs, though, there is still a spectrum of possible divisions of control. Within the vampires-vs-crime conflict, how well-informed were the PCs? My experience is that in such conflict scenarios, control is based heavily on information -- moreso than ability to win. i.e. Even if the vampires are hugely outnumbered, they can at least control the direction of the game if they know where their opponents are and what they are attempting.

Marco wrote: Certainly most people would say the GM runs the world and the PC's run their characters isn't impossible but people regularly come here and say "I tried it and, of course, it failed--it's impossible."

A stranger at the inn will hire the party to travel through the Ghost Hills to the castle of Baron Tudony, where they will have to retrieve the Black Rose. It's kept in the courtyard in the center of the well-guarded castle, so the only way they can get it is to go over the walls. They'll successfully avoid the Baron's air defense, take the Rose, and then travel back to the inn. On the way up, they'll have these encounters, and on the way back they'll have these encounters, which of course they'll easily overcome.

Wouldn't it be neat to get a ship and go after pirates?

Marco wrote:

John Kim wrote: Given that organized crime were NPCs, though, there is still a spectrum of possible divisions of control. Within the vampires-vs-crime conflict, how well-informed were the PCs? My experience is that in such conflict scenarios, control is based heavily on information -- moreso than ability to win. i.e. Even if the vampires are hugely outnumbered, they can at least control the direction of the game if they know where their opponents are and what they are attempting.

Well, let's talk about this: I didn't make any specific effort to control information. They started with the underworld characters they saw and 'worked their way up.' The key element to their success was to make sure that the crime-bosses didn't understand what they were up against. So I wasn't hiding information--I worked out a syndicate map based on what I thought it'd be like and they got their intel as they saw fit and took out targets as they needed (and responded when they were hit back at).

Marco wrote: I think that the division of PC-Empowerment will be seen as very, very different based on what the player is looking for from the GM.

(a) If I had said THIS IS A BAD DIRECTION for the game and made the criminals powerful and deadly and clued in the PC's then I'd be using my GM-power to drive the game away from that, yes? To "control the story away from it."

(b) If I had said MAN, THAT'S A COOL DIRECTION FOR A STORY--I'll make sure I have some great pacing and a premise-laden backstory for them to get in and mess with then I'd be using my GM power to get them into 'my story.'

(c) If I said WHAT DO I THINK IT'D BE LIKE then I'm using my GM power to 'run the world' and the story that evolves from that may be said to be co-written (or you can say it's not a story at all if that moves you).

I think the percpetion of PC-power will be different for players who find (a), (b), and (c) dysfunctional.

I think that Joe, who wants to always be the one doing his things, will find A to be a reduction in player-power although you've said that if I didn't interfer with your playing of your character (you could suicide against the mob if you wanted) then it wasn't controling the story.

I think Fred, who wants to play in an imaginary reality, might find (b) disempowering since I'm taking his actions in a virtuality and turning them into story with a preponderance of 'meaning' that is completely artifical and thus, meaningless.

I think Phil, who wants a Narrativist sotry, might find (c) disempowering since I've taken his action and turned it into something that may not have the premise he wants firmly grafted into it and may not evolve in the always interesting manner of a tight story.

So I don't think that player-empowerment comes without a perspective and an expectation of what the GM oughta be doing.

John Kim wrote:
Well, it's useful to know about your methods/efforts, but I was looking for something different: the actual level of information that the players had. Even if you weren't making specific effort towards it, the results of circumstances can force the PCs into a narrow range of actions and/or reactivity. Oftentimes it is realistic that a character doesn't have control over his own fate. Put another way, rgfa Simulationism is not synonymous with PC proactivity. It is a useful though not necessary technique for proactivity.

In the past, my solution has generally been to design the PCs so that they have considerable resources -- particularly for information.

I think you have a good point here. I have a few disparate comments:

• I didn't use the term "empowering", and it seems to me a slanted term. No one would say they enjoy being "disempowered" -- because that implies rights that are supposed to be theirs being taken away. I prefer Aaron's sliding scale of GM-direction to player-direction, which is more neutral and descriptive.
• Control is not a synonym for enjoyment. i.e. A player may have a high degree of control over the story and yet still not like it. Conversely, it seems reasonable to enjoy something even if you don't have control.
• I most certainly did not say "if I didn't interfer with your playing of your character then it wasn't controling the story." That sounds like absurd nonsense. Story is a combination of character, plot, and setting. The spotlight character is an important part of that, but not the totality.


You seem to be setting up "empowerment" as a term relative to what the player wants (i.e. to Phil, "empowerment" means something different than to Joe). I would prefer a different terms for what different people are looking for.

Well, first of all, yes. I do have considerable power over the direction of the *story*. Depending on how you define "game", maybe that is in the GM's hands (i.e. the GM can "beat" the PCs, no contest). But the story does not consist of what the location is, or even whether the good guys wins. By playing my character, I can make this situation range from Monty-Python-esque comedy (trading quips against the GM's straight men) to dramatic psychological revelation (a lot of dialogue or monologue about how this feels).

M. J. Young wrote:

Marco wrote: Certainly most people would say the GM runs the world and the PC's run their characters isn't impossible but people regularly come here and say "I tried it and, of course, it failed--it's impossible."

Just in case there is confusion here, I would like to call attention to the fact that what is stated here is not the same as The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast, and I cannot recall anyone ever saying that the division of credibility described here--"the GM runs the world and the PC's run their characters"--is in any way impossible.

M. J. Young wrote:

A stranger at the inn will hire the party to travel through the Ghost Hills to the castle of Baron Tudony, where they will have to retrieve the Black Rose. It's kept in the courtyard in the center of the well-guarded castle, so the only way they can get it is to go over the walls. They'll successfully avoid the Baron's air defense, take the Rose, and then travel back to the inn. On the way up, they'll have these encounters, and on the way back they'll have these encounters, which of course they'll easily overcome.

The players meanwhile might be thinking,

Wouldn't it be neat to get a ship and go after pirates?

Marco wrote:

John Kim wrote:

• I most certainly did not say "if I didn't interfer with your playing of your character then it wasn't controling the story." That sounds like absurd nonsense. Story is a combination of character, plot, and setting. The spotlight character is an important part of that, but not the totality.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Can you elaborate more on this:

John Kim wrote: Well, first of all, yes. I do have considerable power over the direction of the *story*. Depending on how you define "game", maybe that is in the GM's hands (i.e. the GM can "beat" the PCs, no contest). But the story does not consist of what the location is, or even whether the good guys wins. By playing my character, I can make this situation range from Monty-Python-esque comedy (trading quips against the GM's straight men) to dramatic psychological revelation (a lot of dialogue or monologue about how this feels).

In the context of a game where your presentation of your character (dialog, emotions, personal behavior, etc.) is not infringed on but the GM is controling locality and what I called "direction of the game?"

Marco wrote: Although Aaron's scale does seem pretty intuitive for fantasy, how would you apply it to a modern-day detective game? It would seem the detectives are informed in the general sense, free in the sense most western countries mean it, and powerful with police powers--but the nature of the game is still that the GM thows myseries at them.

John Kim wrote:
Sure. My point here was that this is still potentially somewhere on the sliding scale -- i.e. the players still have some input/control, though obviously not total. When I said that I have "power", I didn't mean to imply 100% total power, but rather partial power -- maybe less than 50% even, but more than, say, 25%. (Obviously the numbers are semi-arbitrary.) If my PC was free to go anywhere in the world, then I would have more control.

John Kim wrote:
Well, first a few caveats. The criteria (informed, free, powerful) are relative. They also aren't definitive -- i.e. all three can be true and in practice the game is still GM-directed. Well, I would say that pretty much by definition, in a mystery scenario the PCs / players are not well-informed. i.e. They don't know what is going on. Also, I meant free in a practical sense rather than legal (i.e non-slave). If they are more-or-less obliged to take a case that is offered to them, they aren't free in this sense. Lastly, western police powers are designed to strictly limit power to the individual policeman to protect against the sort of abuses which occur in a police state. So, no, I wouldn't call this powerful, either. Let me offer two examples of modern-day campaigns:

1) A modern military action game. The PCs get extensive and largely accurate briefings on what their target will be. They also generally have the upper hand in the fights (i.e. they generally succeed with low PC casualties). Here the PCs are well-informed and powerful, but not free since they are following orders.

2) A superhero game. The PCs are poorly informed -- i.e. they will go on patrol and generally be surprised by what they find. They are, however, free and powerful. They are free -- i.e. no one is requiring them to be superheroes, and they're not subject to police procedure (or even many civilian laws). They are clearly powerful.

Now, there are still many ambiguities which you cite. This isn't rocket science, but I think the distinction (i.e. spectrum of control) is still useful. I don't think that there is any way to, say, objectively distinguish a 50-50 split of power vs a 60-40 split. But hopefully we can refine it.

Marco wrote: I believe that both versions are profitable ways of examining power-sharing in traditional RPG's. But if either are possible then it's no longer clear why "the GM being the author of a story" where the players "are the main characters" is impossible since clearly there's simply a gradient of story-control at play and even if the GM has 90% it isn't proper to call him 'the author of the story' nor to say that the players make no authorial decisions.

Marco wrote: Note: It seems to me that in your examples you are making a substantiallly philosophically different and very valid point about what the PC's are like compared to their opposition and how much ability they have to 'turn down' a 'mission' (or whatever).

I think this is very much a profitable thing to look at with respect and I'll address that after I've thought about it some more.

Marco wrote: If the players say "let's go after pirates" and the GM says "okay."

M. J. Young wrote: As soon as you propose any way at all of resolving this conflict, including "so the referee decides to go with what the players suggest" (or "so the players decide to go with what the referee suggests") you have provided a resolution to the impossible thing that replaces what it really says with what you think it means.

M. J. Young wrote: "Unconscious accommodations for TITBB" is exactly what this thread is about: you read the text, recognize that it can't mean what it says, and immediately impose your interpretation on it, but then think that that's what the text says. It isn't.

MJ Young wrote:
At that instant, the rest of the post becomes irrelevant. What you have there is a subjective interpretation of the text that eliminates The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast by assuming the two sides are supposed to compromise. Nothing in the text says that they are to do that.

"Finally, there's one more rule that every Seneschal (and player) should know by heart. It's the most important rule: the Seneschal is always right. That's right, we said, "THE SENESCHAL IS ALWAYS RIGHT!" You are in charge of the game."
The Riddle of Steel, pg 233

Marco wrote:
I *don't*--I can clearly see that the context is an RPG where words like 'author' and 'main characters' are undefined.

The idea that "The GM is the author of the story and the players are the main characters" has some specific meaning with regards to power-split or is the basis for a concrete social dynamic is a very specific reading of that text that is, IMO, untennable.

It doesn't address issues like compromise. It doesn't touch on power-division issues like Playing Bass or Illusionism or any of that. Those are all far below the level than the analogy goes.

Gareth,
There's a real issue of talking about power split, of different people's ideas about how to achieve working power-splits, and what things like 'control of the story' means.

However, a tacit acceptance that game book-text is significantly responsible for dysfunction makes the foundation of discussion here overly simplisitc.

When I can show you:
1. Posts here where TITBB's verbatim text was used to functionally explain RPG-play to a batch of new players.
2. Examples of 'who-drives' (or 'who controls the story' or whatever) problems in Sorcerer play where that text doesn't exist and the GM is a Forge regular.
3. Text from TRoS, a well regarded, often-seen-as-Narrativist game, that would seem to have at least as dramatic an effect as the actual TITBB 'quote' yet doesn't seem to seriously impact people's impressions of it.

Then I think it's obvious that the situation is a lot more complex than it's been considered here. Part of that reason is the sacred-cow that if the GM is "in some way the author" then the players cannot be said to be in some way "the main characters."

I submit John's two points (that we, mostly, do not discuss real game text and that discussions center on what the 'real meaning' of the words* are) make it pretty damn clear that any actual issue is being avoided.

contracycle wrote:

The idea that "The GM is the author of the story and the players are the main characters" has some specific meaning with regards to power-split or is the basis for a concrete social dynamic is a very specific reading of that text that is, IMO, untennable.

Umm, thats the point. It is not concrete and cannot be, even though it appears reasonable enough at first glance.

It doesn't address issues like compromise. It doesn't touch on power-division issues like Playing Bass or Illusionism or any of that. Those are all far below the level than the analogy goes.

Well of course it does not becuase the texts we are discussing predate these concepts, and these concepts are local to the Forge. This is not the first time you have made this error of projection.

Once again I fail to find any coherence in your argument - it appears to be another objection for the sake of objecting.

"A planned adventure doesn't mean that the Game-master should dictate the actions of the player charaters. If they don't act in the way you had hoped, you will have to adapt and change your adventure to accomodate them."
--Kult (2001) pg 286

"If the characters do something that threatens to ruin the adventure entirely, give them a prod in the right direction. Send in an NPC with guiding information, or invent an incident that points to where yoy want the acton to go ... Role-playing isn't fun if you are stuck ... But remember [be discrete] at all times, the players must feel that they are in full control of what their characters choose to do."
--Kult (2001) pg 286

Hey Jaik,

Is any of the current discourse helpful to you?

Best,
Ron

Marco wrote:
However, a tacit acceptance that game book-text is significantly responsible for dysfunction makes the foundation of discussion here overly simplisitc.

The TITBB's (The Forge's) reading of these words is a one-true-wayism particular to The Forge. That one-true-way is that the absurd interpertation is the only one that can reasonably said to be correct.

contracycle wrote:

Marco wrote:
However, a tacit acceptance that game book-text is significantly responsible for dysfunction makes the foundation of discussion here overly simplisitc.

The TITBB's (The Forge's) reading of these words is a one-true-wayism particular to The Forge. That one-true-way is that the absurd interpertation is the only one that can reasonably said to be correct.

There's a major difference between an observation that commands some agreement and an assertion of a one true way. You make this much more personal and vituperative than it needs to be.

contracycle wrote: And frankly, if you think the degree of critical thought on the Forge is so low that one person proposed this and everyone immediately accepted it like nodding automata than why bother arguing with us idiots?

Marco wrote:
Guy A: "TITBB Text means X and only X."
Guy B: "Well, no, it can also be read to mean Y."
Guy A: "You're wrong. It only means X. You are unconsciously re-writing it in order to read it as Y."

Especially because metaplot, linear-campaign design, GM-advice, and mechanics that set expectations of play are all different things. It isn't clear which, or all of these TITBB really refers to.

contracycle wrote:

Marco wrote:
Guy A: "TITBB Text means X and only X."
Guy B: "Well, no, it can also be read to mean Y."
Guy A: "You're wrong. It only means X. You are unconsciously re-writing it in order to read it as Y."

Guy A coined the term and is the only existing authority as to what it means. Guy A is not answerable to anyone for the term, only for the accuracy of their analysis. Guy B has no business telling Guy A what he "should have" said or meant in Guy B's opinion.

Ron Edwards wrote: Hey Jaik,

Is any of the current discourse helpful to you?

Best,
Ron