Player-led games vs. GM-led games

[2D8HP]

In an RPG, there's also the need for player agency.....

But you seem to be stuck at the start of an adventure. So the PC's pick a plot..ok, fine they do. But then a plot is a plot.....

I feel like I'm in the odd position of at least in part agreeing with both Max and Darth (or at least with what I think their trying to say).

I also don't think a completely "player-led game is an RPG at all, it's a story-telling game which is not the same thing! And a completely GM-led game is a fiction recitation (an authors reading) also not the same thing!

I've done the story-telling game thing where you take turns adding to the narrative of what the author/player said before, and I've been in the audience for book readings, and while those activities can be fun, if I'm invited to play a FRPG, I'm disappointed if I find that it won't be one.

If I'm a player I except to experience a little bit of exploring a fantastic world. I don't expect to play a game in which I'm equally expected to make up the world, which interferes with my perception of exploring one. I'm also disappointed to find that the "FRPG" I've been to "play" is instead an invitation to be in the audience of an author's story recitation.

As GM I want to do some Worldbuilding, and than be surprised by what happens in the scenes I've set up, if I didn't want to be surprised I'd just write a story! And I absolutely would not want to be a GM in which my role is mostly to hold a stop watch.

It may just be my lack of imagination, but extremely player-led, and completely GM-led RPG's just don't seem that fun to me, and hardly RPG's at all.

Fun is in the balance.