>The HW narrator's 'responsibility' is to entertain
>and be entertained. If all you want to do is tell a
>story, why not hand out scripts?
Roleplaying, to me, has always been a cooperative storytelling effort. Enjoyment comes from creating an entertaining story together based on the interaction of narrative and character. A story which is entertaining is "good", because the purpose of all stories is to entertain. Every narrator "scripts", in that every narrator has some sense of what direction he or she wants the story to take in any given campaign or scenario.
The fundamental structure of every story (as well as roleplaying adventure) is a series of encounters which ultimately lead to a climactic moment. If an adventure write-up is *not* a script, what would you suggest we consider it? Is deciding "the heroes can not succeed in their initial encounter with the tribal ring" somehow different than deciding "I don't want the heroes to succeed in their initial encounter with the tribal ring, so I will inflate the abilities of the opposition such that they have no hope"?
If the adventure requires that the characters undertake three tasks in order to prove their mettle before the tribal ring will hear them out, then they *must* be unable to succeed in their initial encounter. Scripting? Yes. "Railroading"? Yes. Much less adversarial than the latter option above, though, and doesn't waste valuable play-time with pointless die rolls. It also saves the players from wasting Hero Points too early in the adventure.
It's called a "push" in writing circles, FYI.
-- Michael Richard Schwartz | Language is my playground, mschwartz_at_... | and words, its slides and Ann Arbor, Michigan USA | swingsets. -- yours truly
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