Oh boy. I've prompted some replies.
As a general reply I'll say that, given my impression as to the "narrativity" of the story I find it somewhat silly or disingenuous to go so far as saying it's inaccurate—let alone
insulting of all things—to describe the quest as, broadly speaking, a narrative.
Apparently narrative is surprisingly loaded term around these parts, so I'll try and expand on my own understanding of what it means below.
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A narrative that can potentially end suddenly and without significant player involvement, then. I'm not saying we need a hero's journey here, but that while we're playing things are going to tend towards the interesting/interactive.
Also what
@Raxner said.
>Quote, core is: "Because of the requirements of the narrative what the QMs can allow regardless of our cleverness is going to have some limits."
This is what I'm referring to when I say narrative. If you still disagree with me on that, then I would advise you to reconsider. The QMs have stated on multiple occasions that they are willing to let us win or lose if we figure out a way to to do so, regardless of how much conflict it provides. There is a certain amount of trust required for the QM-Player contract to work -- if you don't trust them when they say something like that, why bother with the quest as a whole?
Also it's quite frustrating when the QMs have represented the world as working in a certain way and people just ignore that and loudly shout that doesn't work. I had an argument a couple days ago with someone who was doing that and it was maddening
I'm not going to stand here and accuse the QMs of being underhanded dastards deceiving the thread with their lies—I don't think
@TaliesinSkye is doing that either, but we'll leave that aside for now.
I will however say that in my read of the quest so far this kind of "shit, that would break everything, better stop that" reasoning has been more or less out in the open and embraced by all sides. Supersonic-substitution, henge, adopting literally everyone, the existence and nature of the merchant council. All phrased and interpreted and almost certainly genuinely meant as "rules patches" to make the world make sense/explain why it looks the way it does; also all stopping the players from being able to mash an "I Win" button if we'd instead gone with a somewhat-plausible "well I guess no one thought of that yet" answer, rather than a "no, can't do that, here's why" one that we end up with.
I'm confident that we never said "Don't do that" in the imperative tone.
I recall us saying (something to the effect of) "You can do that if you want, but events will continue without you if you do", which was a reference to, among other things and without you having any way of knowing it, the fact that Akatsuki's plan was in play. We probably also said something like "this will be really boring and I wish you wouldn't" but I'm confident that we never gave a directive on the issue.
"Told" was not the right word for me to use. I should have said "asked" or "implied" instead. My apologies for saying that you used an imperative.
Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps I'm misreading or misremembering or misinterpreting. But to lay out my own meaning clearly it's been my impression through years of reading (and cumulatively maybe a month or two of actively participating in) this quest that both sides of the QM screen have an interest in things being "interesting" and/or narratively satisfying; and that several decisions have been reached or at the least influenced by that interest. I was using the lighthouse as the most prominent example I could pull off the top of my head.
Things like how "let's talk to Ami, that'll be fun!" or "YOUTH!" have come about and gone have not quite been driven by the cold calculus of utility-maximizing machines and their simulationist-computer buddies, I would say. And that's okay.
