clearstream
(He, Him)
I noticed the same possible glitch as @Crimson Longinus, i.e. that it would seem OOC establishing falls rather on the telling-not-showing side. Yet I felt what you were getting at was a different distinction... which you've done more to spell out here.Negative, ts not. A "dump" in this conception is when the relevant climax, the falling action, and often (though not always) the denouement has already been resolved offscreen (or sometimes onscreen if its a crappy movie and they have to tell us what just happened because they were so poor in the showing of it) and we're just revealing it to the audience. The relevant cake is already baked and we're just putting it on a platter for passive consumption. Anticipation of and curiosity around "what happens when/if (?)" doesn't/can't enter into it...because the relevant if/when has already happened and we're learning about it and the attendant fallout right now during the exposition.
Contrast with the sort of setup you're pointing at (the kind you're seeing me advocate for) where it is about actually generating the ingredients of "what happens when/if (?)", generating the sites of rising action, so we can answer those questions in the course of play; the climax, falling action, and denouement. Its about generating entanglements, prospective sites of conflict/clash, opportune areas to generate downstream dangers, hardships, duress, discoveries during actual play.
Further, its not actual play. Its preplay and totally meta. Therefore, its no more "telling" than selecting a playbook/class, what-have-you, or the process of choosing a game where there is a consequential premise that generates the player and GM meta which one has to opt into to play the game at all. No one is playing a character and no one is framing an onscreen (because right now there is no "screen") situation/obstacle to resolve.
One way I think about ludonarrative is as establishing story potential rather than story actuality. So whereas in a story we might have "The hungry caterpillar ate the leaf" in ludonarrative we need the potentials - an ambulatory caterpillar, leaf as food, effects of eating/not-eating food - and let it go from there. Notwithstanding this juicy leaf right here, our caterpillar might go explore elsewhere: the audience as author controls that.
If it's right to count OOC as telling not showing, then the distinction that matters isn't one between showing and telling, but between story told and story in potential. I probably differ from others in this thread in that I see it as an evolution of TTRPG tech with a historical association with one ism, but not locked to it. The tech did not create differences between trad-narrative and ludonarrative, it was formed (and is forming) around identifying and working real differences between them.
There is action in marketplace haggling or getting a fancy suit, and there can be conflict. It's Tuovinen you are thinking ofEDIT: And it should be noted that the above is referring to actual sites of conflict. I'm also folding in (and perhaps even especially) free, protracted roleplay about mere color like philosophical musings where there is nothing at stake (no consequential gamestate/situation-state clashes are occurring...so the opposite of a Convince or Convince Crowd conflict) or cosplaying weddings or tavern winching or marketplace haggling or hey I'm at a tailor lets cosplay getting a fancy suit/dress etc etc. I can't remember who coined the term off the top of my head, but I'm pointing at "Dollhouse Play" here. I don't want to spend any table time on Dollhouse Play. There are lots of people who do. That is great. I'm glad for them to have that form of play. They just won't be doing it with me as a GM for them. Which is easily enough avoided because I'm just one person out of a massive pile of people to run games!
This can be pure coop, but it can also be fraught with conflict. Such as when there are resource limits or purposes to what is planned and designed.“Dollhouse play” is a joint activity, usually not strongly chairmanned, where the players build something together. There might be a reason for the building, some sort of purpose to which the project of planning and designing is directed.