Quote from: Manzanaro;882427I agree with this. But what I am interested in is more along the lines of bringing good narrative or story-telling principles to a game that remains simulationist at its core.

In other words it isn't about things happening because they are good for the story, it's about presenting the things that happen in a way that MAKES them good AS a story.

Is that too muddy to follow?

And I been telling you for a variety of reasons, that the better payoff would be to focus on what makes for a more interesting experience. Treat the campaign more as planning an exciting vacation not writing a story. Two equally interesting vacations may not produce two equally interesting stories. For one the experiences of the traveler lends themselves well to crafting a interesting story. For the other the experiences do not.

A vacation can be a series of random stops and visits, or it can have a direction and flow with built in rest days ending with a climatic visit to a grand or important place.

Quotedon't like metagaming when I referee a tabletop RPG campaign. However I been at this long enough to recognize there is rarely just one plausible outcome to any course of actions. So out of that range of possibilities I will pick the ones that I think the players will find interesting and that fit the campaign I am running.

Careful use of this technique will give the campaign a sense of flow and direction. Of rising action followed by a climax. A sense that plot threads coming together into a grand finale.

Quote from: Manzanaro;882427And this is exactly the kind of practice I am talking about! Looking deeper at these kinds of techniques is something I find very interesting.

As a player you are constrained in your choices because you are limited to what your character can do and to what your character knows. As a referee of my campaign I have a wider range of choices. Because of that from time to time I have the opportunity to give the campaign flow and a direction.

But understand I only chose from what I view as PLAUSIBLE outcomes from the decisions of the player. And more often enough this doesn't result in a good narrative even if it does produces an interesting experience.

Campaigns focused on narratives I found will expand out that from that. Yes most campaigns that does that won't have stuff that is blatantly impossible or makes no sense. But the consequence is  that the campaign takes on a cinematic feel due to the widespread use of "movie/novel" logic.

So you could look at that and say, "well that what I want?" Sure but the problem is that RPG are about creating an experience. And that is a specific type of experience and eventually people get bored or irritated by one improbable outcome stacked on top of another improbable outcome. Just as people will eventually get bored with participating in campaigns about being God's watchdog in the old west.

No matter what theory people try to say about the theory if you are playing a RPG campaign as a player and a referee  you are continually looking at the circumstances and making decision.  A author has the luxury of thinking ahead to structure a narrative in a way to make an interesting story. Since as human beings we can't see into the future to predict what we do let alone others, trying to create a narrative structure doesn't work.

Estar, what is weird here is that you keep reading me as saying I want to base outcomes on narrative principles even in posts where I am saying that is exactly what I do NOT want to do...

I mean, correct me if I'm wrong but in that last section of your above post you seem to be disagreeing with my agreeing with you!

I am going to use my Scourge of the Demon Wolf as an example.

Scourge is focused on a specific situation in a specific location. A group of wolves have been terrorizing a village for several months.

The reason for the wolves terrorizing the village is the fact they are being led by a alpha wolf that is possessed by a demon.

The reason the alpha wolf is possessed by a demon is that a mage's apprentices performed a botched summoning ritual.

The reason the apprentices did the ritual was that she is greedy for power and her master was was foolish enough to retain possession of a forbidden books on summoning demons. While it was hidden, she discovered and took it into the woods away from the Mage's conclave she lives at to do the ritual.

The ritual occurred on top of a large rock outcropping. At the base of the outcropping was a wolf den with puppies. The apprentices thought she botched the ritual as nothing appeared to happened but in reality a wrath demon was summoned and possessed one of the pups.

Thus the demon wolf was born. It was fully grown by the next summer and began it reign of terror.

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So far so good, I can write a story because all of this in the past so I use traditional authoring techniques to give this a interesting narrative structure.

But it a boring or trivial RPG adventure at this point because even enmass and led by a demon, wolves are not a particularly interesting foe to fight.

What is infinitely more interesting is their impact on the inhabitants of the region.
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First off the village has suffered number deaths due to the wolves including the death of the bailiff who is a knight in the service of the baron who owns the village. Because of the prolonged terror, the village has slipped into rebellion and won't bring in the baron's harvest until the wolves have been dealt with.

The rural countryside has always had bandits, one more ruthless gang took advantage of the situation to make their attacks on isolated farmsteads and travelers look like wolf attacks.

Walking into this was a group of nomadic beggars who wander the countryside looking for work along with acting as fences for the various bandit gangs. After they concluded their business the local bandits who were impersonating wolves. The chief's son was caught and killed by the wolves. Now the chief has vowed vengeance and resolves to stay in the area until his son's killer has been caught.

Then there is mage's conclave deep in the wilderness who are ignorant of the havoc one of their own has caused.
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So now I got some inhabitants who were impacted by the demon wolf in various interesting ways.

It now a more interesting RPG adventures but it still kinda of sucks because the players don't know any of this. Exposition is boring as fuck and feels like a railroad to boot.

So now it time to create some threads to connect up these people.
=====================================

First off the hooks into the adventure, there are a couple of plausible hooks. One is that the players are hanging around the baronial court and the job to deal with the situation. To make this more interesting, I created a huntsman that led the previous attempt and failed at it. Mainly by being lackadaisical and outwitted by the demon wolf who manipulated him into killing a rival pack. The baron has put the huntsman into the stock for a few days. So this hook will probably play to with the PCs taking to the Baron, and then interacting with the huntsman to get more information.

Another is that the Thieves' Guild have noticed there being a lot of goods passing out of the region and they are not getting their cut from the gang responsible. The PCs are tasked to find the gang, make them pay, or eliminate them.

A third is that the players come across the scene of a recent attack and the village happens to be the closest settlement that can deal with the body.

During my playtest I used the Baronial court. Note that in my Majestic Wilderlands, I took a page from history and made a noble's court an important center of social activity. While it is a form of "Here is a mission go do it." I play out more or less in a more historical way. The PCs hang out at court hoping to get the attention of the lord or one of his officers and receive a job or patronage of some sort.

I added a hamlet called Denison Crossing that could be used as a source of up to date information on the immediate area.

On the road to the village from Denison's Crossing, I placed my first thread. The recently dead body of a tinker and his overturned cart. Careful examination of the scene will have the party uncover evidence that was an attack by humans not wolves. Along with a trail. But it not a certain result. To put together that it was a human attack the party must examine the body and discover that it has recent weapon wounds as well as claw marks. And the party must range out far enough to find the tracks leading to the bandit camp.

In my playtests it has been 50-50 as to whether the party discovered the connection to the bandits.

If they go to the bandit gang, they find most of them outside laughing and eating. Here I often interject a humorous episode. Most of the time, one or more in the playtest group invariably hide themselves in the bushes to the left of the bandits. I will roll some dice and then say that one of the bandits gets up and walks over to those bushes while undoing his pants. Then does his business urinating unaware that the PCs are in the bush.

When this happens, this is the point the PCs say fuck it and attack. Although one group had a more elaborate plan and the player that got hit endured it in order for the rest of the party to get into position. He was subjected to much good natured ridicule.

If they win the bandit fight, and all of the groups I playtested won, either two things commonly happened. Either they found out about the bandit's connection to beggars as fences or they didn't. Regardless of the outcome nearly all of the groups marched the captured beggars to the village. The exception is where one group decided to force the bandits to show them where the beggars are right off the bat.

One group assumed that the bandits were the problem, presented them to the baron as the source of the problem. I had the Baron praise them for their efforts, rewarded them, and then he sent them after the beggars which eventually led to the defeat of the demon wolf.

For both group the village was never dealt with both party eventually wound up dealing with the demon wolf with the information from the beggars alone.

However for most groups, the place they arrived at was the village. There one of two things happened. Either they talked extensively with the Reeve of the village, or they talked extensively with the village priest. There was generally not much difference except if the fact that there are beggars in the area comes up. In which case the village priest immediately blames them for the problem. The Reeve viewed the beggars as a distraction and wanted to focus on finding the wolves.

All of the groups supported the reeves over the village priest. By this time it was the end of the game day so the PCs were given quarters for the night. In the morning they were given a colorful local guide, who I give a sloooow drawl when I speak in character. And they search the area.

This is the typical course of events, all groups had variation some wildly so. The first day in the village was spend searching the countryside and some of the attack sites. At this point a pack of wolves attacks the PCs as a test by the Demon Wolf. At this point any doubt that it is actual wolves causing the problem is dispelled.

By the end the day, the PCs will generally have discovered the summoning site. There is enough there that all of the groups figured out that something was summoned to cause this. As to WHY the summoning occurred every groups had a different theory.

Sometimes this first day had the group visiting the beggars. In which case they get a non-hostile but cold welcome and little information. More often than not the group tell the beggars to leave the area.

When the PCs get back they will find the reeve bruised and half the village gone. Apparently the high priest organized a mob to go after the beggars who are viewed as the source of the evil.

The PCs give pursuit and generally made it just as the beggar and villagers are about to rumble. Every group that dealt with this acted to defuse the situation. Some did it by an inspiring speech, some did it by a judicious use of sleep spells. A handful just outright threatened to kill everybody there if they didn't settle down. I was personally surprised that at least one group didn't try to en-flame the situation.

Because of this the result for all the groups that had to deal with the situation was grudging gratitude of the beggars. After which the chief will fill him on what he knows which highlights the fact that there is a conclave of mages in the region.

Generally this ends the second day of the adventure. The second night features a more serious attack by the demon wolf on the PCs. The circumstances varies from group to group. If a PCs dies this is where it first happens. I have to stress the variety of things that happen at this point. For example in one group, the thief was pissed off at the village priest and decided to rob the local temple. He succeed but on the way back was caught by a pack of wolves. He survived only by climbing up a tree and hanging out there for the night.

The third day of the adventure generally saw the players going out to the mage's conclaves. For groups that went from the bandits to the beggars this happens on the second day.

At this points the adventures resolves pretty much the same for all the group. They go the conclave, meet with the master mages, they get a cold welcome. During the conversation, one of the PCs will notice an apprentice riding off full tilt. The mages grow ashamed and become helpful. The fact the book on demons is missing is discovered.

The PCs give pursuit, only to find the apprentice in the midst of the ritual again. As they approach, the wolves attack again, this time led by the Demon wolf in person. When the demon wolf is killed, the demon then possesses the apprentice (dead or alive) who is transformed into a wrath demon. And the final battle is fought.

===================================
The main reason this works this way is because of several reasons.

I designed the connections so that they were both plausible and give the players the information they needed to find out about the Demon Wolf. I rely on the fact that what makes most murders and events deducible is the fact people leave threads and connections all over the place.

That this was situation of limited scope with a definitive answer to the question of who is the demon wolf?

When I run I run is if it was virtual reality. I am very flexible as to how people handle the situation.

The only time I had to "intervene" was the last time I played the group was sure that the bandit gang was behind it all and dragged them back to the baron. Because it was only an hour and a half into a four hour convention game, I had to come up with a plausible way of getting back to the adventure. Luckily they interrogated then bandit and reported that the beggars were the fences. So dealing with the beggars was a very natural way of getting the party back out there.

That game was probably the 12th time I had ran the adventure. Even after that many repetitions groups were still surprising me with how they handled the situation.

The final confrontation is a bit of a railroad but plausible given the circumstance. I was willing to do this at this point to give the situation a satisfying resolution full of action. If this was occurring in a city with possessed people in place of the wolves, then I would have had probably put in thread connecting to the fact that the apprentice was interested in demons, and wanted lots of power. As a city environment would have resulted in the apprentice interacting with a lot more people. This would have led to an alternate path to resolving the adventure.

But because of the rural setting all the paths eventually wound up at the mage's conclave.

I will end with saying that reason I had a product out of this is that when confronted with a particular set of circumstances a group of players generally acted similarly. This narrowed what I had to put into the book.

Quote from: Manzanaro;882455Estar, what is weird here is that you keep reading me as saying I want to base outcomes on narrative principles even in posts where I am saying that is exactly what I do NOT want to do...

I don't view that you want a forced outsome. I view the use of narrative principles while managing a tabletop campaign is being severely limited and been trying to explain to you why. Quoting from the OP

QuoteSo what I thought might be interesting to discuss is tools and techniques for doing this. How do you, whether as GM or player, promote a good compelling narrative under rules of simulation?

My answer has been consistently been there are no tools of use to a tabletop RPGs that will promote a good compelling narrative. In fact it is impossible to promote has it is totally random whether a campaign produces a good narrative or not.

There are however tools that will promote a good compelling EXPERIENCE in a tabletop RPG.

Quote from: Manzanaro;882455I mean, correct me if I'm wrong but in that last section of your above post you seem to be disagreeing with my agreeing with you!

I am pointing out that my choices determined by the circumstances first and then I pick out the one I think that works best in terms of how the campaign flows and develops. It is never the other way around. I will also from time to time roll randomly for the outcome from what plausible to minimizes my bias.


As an aside, for the LARP events I ran it is the other way around because I constrained by the limitation of manpower. Event staff, have to have time to move, prepare, eat, sleep, etc. So I am very contained in the order and type of encounters I can run in every area except for those involving roleplaying. Even then I still only have so many bodies that I can have in-game.

So with LARP events I figured out what encounters work best and when. I design them in terms of how they fit a overall narrative for that event. I do build, like all good LARP event directors, some flexibility. but it is nothing like the flexibility of a tabletop campaign.

The only reason I get away with it is because how much of a railroad the links between LARP encounters are in the first place. If it going to be a railroad might as well be interesting and fun right?

Quote from: estar;882474My answer has been consistently been there are no tools of use to a tabletop RPGs that will promote a good compelling narrative. In fact it is impossible to promote has it is totally random whether a campaign produces a good narrative or not.

There are however tools that will promote a good compelling EXPERIENCE in a tabletop RPG.

The problem, Rob, is you're discussing this with someone who denies that there is a difference.

That is a good module, BTW, I'm planning on doing a major riff on it in Dragon Age with people thinking it might be Scourge Wolves, but actually is a Gluttony Demon.

Estar, this is from you:

QuoteCareful use of this technique will give the campaign a sense of flow and direction. Of rising action followed by a climax. A sense that plot threads coming together into a grand finale.

I don't know what you think I mean when I talk about using narrative techniques in a simulationist game? But what I am quoting from you here absolutely fits into the kind of techniques I am talking about.

Quote from: CRKrueger;882476That is a good module, BTW, I'm planning on doing a major riff on it in Dragon Age with people thinking it might be Scourge Wolves, but actually is a Gluttony Demon.

Mmmmm I can see that working especially with the additional detail in the supplement half. Let me know how it works out.

Quote from: Manzanaro;882478Estar, this is from you:



I don't know what you think I mean when I talk about using narrative techniques in a simulationist game? But what I am quoting from you here absolutely fits into the kind of techniques I am talking about.

But it is coupled with this

QuoteHowever I been at this long enough to recognize there is rarely just one plausible outcome to any course of actions. So out of that range of possibilities I will pick the ones that I think the players will find interesting and that fit the campaign I am running.

What are you going to do if the range of possibilities doesn't include anything that interesting from a narrative viewpoint? That any of the choices will destroy the sense you are in a play, movie, or book.

My experience that it happens slightly more often than not. That about 50% of the time I can make the campaign feel like it has a specific flow. Otherwise it just feels like a life.

The main reason I do this is because I find it make the experience more interesting for some people. It a spice I add to the main course. A lot of time the spice is not to taste in which case it fall back on the fact I crafted an interesting situation for the players to deal with.

I also rely on supplying a rich description of where the players are at. As well as distinctive personalities for the monsters and NPCs. But these are tempered by the fact that too much is a negative.

The campaigns I run are a challenging balancing act of different techniques. The primary one is that the players have total freedom to chose what their characters can do. This plus my setting have a life of their own is what gives my campaign there distinct feel.

But the above are not sufficient for every person to have fun at my table hence I weave other technique, like picking outcomes that give a campaign sense of flow. It took a while (30 years) and I am still learning but I learned to adapt just about every technique out there so that my two central techniques remain intact.

If you play in my campaign, I can't promise you a good narrative to what happens to your character. But I can promise that I will be able to transport you to the Majestic Wilderlands, Harn, the Third Imperium, the four color world of superheroes, Babylon 5, Star Trek, and make you feel like you are actually there as your character doing interesting things.

Which to me is the point of running tabletop RPGs campaign.

Quote from: estar;882483If you play in my campaign, I can't promise you a good narrative to what happens to your character. But I can promise that I will be able to transport you to the Majestic Wilderlands, Harn, the Third Imperium, the four color world of superheroes, Babylon 5, Star Trek, and make you feel like you are actually there as your character doing interesting things.

Which to me is the point of running tabletop RPGs campaign.

No. It is the point of running tabletop RPG campaigns with one specific creative agenda (a subset of RTD in this case). Which is perfectly legit, and also extremely fun to do. But it is one of the faces of RPGing, not the only one.

I am still wondering what is the difference between your specific needs when playing, and Manzanaro's. And whether Manzanaro's can be expressed as a classic forgey CA. But believe me, yours can

Quote from: Manzanaro;882427By the way, is there an easy way to reply to multiple posts with a single reply?

There's no built-in multiquote feature, no.  I fake it by opening replies to each individual message in separate tabs, then copy/paste them all into a single reply.  I'm not aware of any better/easier option.

Quote from: Manzanaro;882427In other words it isn't about things happening because they are good for the story, it's about presenting the things that happen in a way that MAKES them good AS a story.

Isn't that mostly a matter of how the players and GM describe things?  (e.g., "I hit the orc with my axe" vs. "I strike the orc's spear down with the flat of my axe, then return with an upswing, driving the blade into its jaw."  Both are the same action, but described in different levels of detail.)  Or am I still not getting you?

Quote from: Manzanaro;882428Absolutely, we can all pick out bullshit moments in books and movies that don't feel REAL. I don't want the cavalry to arrive BECAUSE we are in trouble. But I DO want to be able to make an interesting narrative out of the cavalry arriving a day late, if that is what the rules of simulation tell me has happened.

I always want to be able to tell my players WHY something happened in game. And I don't want it to be bullshit. Why did the cavalry arrive when they did? Because before you even set off I determined that they would come looking for you if you didn't return in 3 days, and then I rolled 3d20 to see how many hours it would take them to find you and that is when they showed up.

That's pretty much exactly what I do.  I've always got a faction-level game going in the background, plus tracking what all my major NPCs are up to, and usually try to have these higher-level things worked out at least an in-game month ahead.  My main reason for having that ready is so that, when I'm skipping time forward day-by-day, I have events to report to the players, but it also produces things like the inverse of your cavalry scenario - the PCs (rulers of a small settlement) went out on a diplomatic mission and, the morning after they arrived, they had to rush back home because a messenger arrived with news that trolls had attacked the evening of the day they left and were rampaging through the PCs' territory.  (They'd been maintaining a low-level conflict with that band of trolls for the previous few months, then happened to set off on the same date that I'd previously determined the trolls would launch a serious counterattack.)

Quote from: Manzanaro;882431But even so, when I say I want there to be some intent, I don't mean in terms of how it turns out. Like, an example would be something like, "Okay, I want to do a scene where Bragnakh takes Melinor the Black to talk out on the docks and tells him, 'You almost got me fucking killed out there'". I don't know where that is going to go but I know it should be good.

In my games, that would most likely be handled by the player either looking for Melinor on the docks (possibly with a roll for how long it takes to find him, depending on how much time he spends there) or telling me how he's going to try to get Melinor to go there, and then start in on the conversation.  I wouldn't expect Bragnakh's player to tell me up front what he had planned for Melinor once he got him there.  So still pretty similar to your approach, I think, just with less collective premeditation.  (Of course, whatever Bragnakh does to Melinor may still be premeditated...   )

Quote from: nDervish;882494There's no built-in multiquote feature, no.  I fake it by opening replies to each individual message in separate tabs, then copy/paste them all into a single reply.  I'm not aware of any better/easier option.

You could use the multi-quote feature. There is a Muti-quote button onto the right of the Quote button at the bottom of each post. Click that button for each post you want to quote, except the last post. Then click the Quote button for the last post. Voila!

Personally I usually use the copy and paste method as it lets me to my editing in a side document which has some other advantages for me.

Quote from: Manzanaro;882427By the way, is there an easy way to reply to multiple posts with a single reply?
.

There is a multi quote button beside the Quote button.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;882489No. It is the point of running tabletop RPG campaigns with one specific creative agenda (a subset of RTD in this case). Which is perfectly legit, and also extremely fun to do. But it is one of the faces of RPGing, not the only one.

I am still wondering what is the difference between your specific needs when playing, and Manzanaro's. And whether Manzanaro's can be expressed as a classic forgey CA. But believe me, yours can

A creative agenda is specific to playing out a specific thing with a theme.

The approach I use is neutral to what the players actually want to do and experience except for the setting. Some settings I use are broad enough to accommodate radical changes in what people call creative agendas. Notably my Majestic Wilderlands for Fantasy, and Third Imperium for Traveller.

I will admit that an immersive campaign is my ideal. But I long given up on trying to get any group of players to anything in particular. Instead I do what it takes to adapt the campaign to what they want to do through actual play. Something I been doing for 30 years. I encourage immersion but if it doesn't work out that way oh well. The players still are doing things of interest to them in places they find interesting.

The only rules I have on player conduct are that you display good sportsmanship while attending my session, that you act in-game as if your there as your character, that you speak in first person if you speak in-game. I find doing the above is the best way of encouraging immersion without being heavy handed about it.

One reason I run things this way, is that I personally find it more fun and more challenging to run a campaign that arbitrary group find fun and interesting. Rather than subject them something I think should be fun and interesting.

I been refereeing continuously for 30+ years. I done most of the things I wanted to do. The more interesting challenge now is to see if I can make something interesting and fun regardless of who show up at my table.

The reason feel that ideas like creative agenda is horseshit is because my experience is that every people has there own likes and dislikes. There no point to any type of category because in the end the only things that work are techniques that allow you to maximize amount of competing interests you can handle during a campaign.

Ron Edwards advocates "Hey here how to find your group's creative agenda and use it in play."

I advocate "Hey here how to use everybody's creative agenda in play."

Quote from: Manzanaro;882427I agree with this. But what I am interested in is more along the lines of bringing good narrative or story-telling principles to a game that remains simulationist at its core.

In other words it isn't about things happening because they are good for the story, it's about presenting the things that happen in a way that MAKES them good AS a story.

Is that too muddy to follow?

1: That can be as simple as being more descriptive of what is going on. Its fairly common. Evoking the atmosphere of the location for example. Describing the things in the area not "plot" relevant simply to show that the area is not existing solely for the plot. Or NPCs just doing their thing because they have jobs and lives.

2: Oft you dont even need that. Many players will enguage in in the background action or appreciate it for the fact that it is in the background. The key to good story is flow, consistency and interrelations. Keep on the borderlands. Despite being an open sandbox location, has a fair amount of consistency to whats going on and interactions between the groups both at the caves and at the keep.

3: Seems clear enough.

Quote from: nDervish;882494Isn't that mostly a matter of how the players and GM describe things?  (e.g., "I hit the orc with my axe" vs. "I strike the orc's spear down with the flat of my axe, then return with an upswing, driving the blade into its jaw."  Both are the same action, but described in different levels of detail.)  Or am I still not getting you?

I'm not sure I'd say 'mostly', but certainly description is an example of what I am talking about. That being said, it isn't about just layering description in until you reach some point of quality. Actually, it would be pretty interesting to read different people's advice for effective use of description in the context of RPGs. If I had more time at the moment I would take a shot at it myself. Maybe later.

EDIT: I see Omega also mentions this, so maybe some other people will have some comments on using description effectively.

QuoteThat's pretty much exactly what I do.  I've always got a faction-level game going in the background, plus tracking what all my major NPCs are up to, and usually try to have these higher-level things worked out at least an in-game month ahead.  My main reason for having that ready is so that, when I'm skipping time forward day-by-day, I have events to report to the players, but it also produces things like the inverse of your cavalry scenario - the PCs (rulers of a small settlement) went out on a diplomatic mission and, the morning after they arrived, they had to rush back home because a messenger arrived with news that trolls had attacked the evening of the day they left and were rampaging through the PCs' territory.  (They'd been maintaining a low-level conflict with that band of trolls for the previous few months, then happened to set off on the same date that I'd previously determined the trolls would launch a serious counterattack.)

Yeah, I love this kind of thing. Sometimes the simulation returns results that are going to make for a good narrative no matter how you frame it, as long as the groundwork is laid.

QuoteIn my games, that would most likely be handled by the player either looking for Melinor on the docks (possibly with a roll for how long it takes to find him, depending on how much time he spends there) or telling me how he's going to try to get Melinor to go there, and then start in on the conversation.  I wouldn't expect Bragnakh's player to tell me up front what he had planned for Melinor once he got him there.  So still pretty similar to your approach, I think, just with less collective premeditation.  (Of course, whatever Bragnakh does to Melinor may still be premeditated...   )

Yeah that is sensible.

I basically use player 'scene framing' as a declaration of intent. So if Bragnakhs player had made that declaration of wanting to do that scene, but Melinor's player had declared that he was laying low for the duration, we would have to determine how that worked out, but at least I am going into that process with a good awareness of what both players are looking for.

Similarly if I had established that the town guard had recently put a lot of focus on the docks, or something along those lines, than the scene would also be a bit different than the player had explicitly asked for. But I find it is a pretty effective technique for cutting through the dross and actually encouraging players to go for moments that bring some compelling narrative to the table (all completely under tenets of simulation, at least to the degree the simulation is complete).

EDIT: Thanks to the folks who replied about the multi post button. I wondered what that thing was. Looked too exotic to be fucking around with.