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A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7557548" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Nor have I had problems resolving these situations.</p><p></p><p>If I've understood you correctly, you are suggesting that <em>is established/narrated without regard to player preferences</em> as <em>functions like real life</em>. I don't agree with that suggestion. One main reason is that real life is indepenedent of <em>anyone's</em> will.</p><p></p><p>A further consideration is that, in a TTRPG, it is relatively uncommon for a GM's notes or a setting book to specify every patron of a teahouse at all times. Or to have an encounter table for each teahouse. (I own many setting books. None of them purports to offer comprehensive coverage of the teahouses and the like that they describe.) So the action declaration <em>We go to the innhouse looking for sect members</em> triggers a decision-making process on the GM's part which is more than just looking up and reciting a note, or even looking up and rolling on a table (eg even if the encounter table has a "cult" entry, the GM has to decide if the rolled cultist is a sect member).</p><p></p><p>There are many principles that can govern the GM in making those decisions. But my contention is that none of them makes it like real life. A further point - related, but not the same: I think that, in practice, most of those principles make the gameworld far less varied and far more predictable than real life generally is.</p><p></p><p>This comes out in [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s post not far upthread:</p><p></p><p>On Friday I left some friends to head off and do my own thing. My own thing was a bust, so I went into a nearby library. I sat in there for about half-an-hour until my laptop battery went dead. Then, just as I was leaving, my friends were coming in so that I bumped into them at the entrance.</p><p></p><p>This is a very big library on a very large university campus, so a minute either way for me or them and we would not have bumped into one another. Not to mention this was the first time I'd been in that library for over ten years, and the first time ever one of my friends had been in there - so neither of us would be on the other's library encounter table.</p><p></p><p>Having re-met, we then were walking back to where one of my friends was parked when we bumped into another firend as he was leaving work. Our paths were only going to cross on a 50 metre stretch of footpath, so again a minute either way and that encounter wouldn't have happened. Whereas, as it was, I eneded up getting a lift home with him and then talking to him in his car outside my house for about half-an-hour.</p><p></p><p>My view is that for a RPG experience to be like real life even in outcome, it at least has to produce these sorts of events.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7557548, member: 42582"] Nor have I had problems resolving these situations. If I've understood you correctly, you are suggesting that [I]is established/narrated without regard to player preferences[/I] as [I]functions like real life[/I]. I don't agree with that suggestion. One main reason is that real life is indepenedent of [i]anyone's[/I] will. A further consideration is that, in a TTRPG, it is relatively uncommon for a GM's notes or a setting book to specify every patron of a teahouse at all times. Or to have an encounter table for each teahouse. (I own many setting books. None of them purports to offer comprehensive coverage of the teahouses and the like that they describe.) So the action declaration [I]We go to the innhouse looking for sect members[/I] triggers a decision-making process on the GM's part which is more than just looking up and reciting a note, or even looking up and rolling on a table (eg even if the encounter table has a "cult" entry, the GM has to decide if the rolled cultist is a sect member). There are many principles that can govern the GM in making those decisions. But my contention is that none of them makes it like real life. A further point - related, but not the same: I think that, in practice, most of those principles make the gameworld far less varied and far more predictable than real life generally is. This comes out in [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s post not far upthread: On Friday I left some friends to head off and do my own thing. My own thing was a bust, so I went into a nearby library. I sat in there for about half-an-hour until my laptop battery went dead. Then, just as I was leaving, my friends were coming in so that I bumped into them at the entrance. This is a very big library on a very large university campus, so a minute either way for me or them and we would not have bumped into one another. Not to mention this was the first time I'd been in that library for over ten years, and the first time ever one of my friends had been in there - so neither of us would be on the other's library encounter table. Having re-met, we then were walking back to where one of my friends was parked when we bumped into another firend as he was leaving work. Our paths were only going to cross on a 50 metre stretch of footpath, so again a minute either way and that encounter wouldn't have happened. Whereas, as it was, I eneded up getting a lift home with him and then talking to him in his car outside my house for about half-an-hour. My view is that for a RPG experience to be like real life even in outcome, it at least has to produce these sorts of events. [/QUOTE]
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