Recent content by The Firebird

I mean the decision making about where the PCs go and what they attempt is exclusively in the hands of the players. The GM defines and adjudicates the world. The players act within that world. Right--this is why I figured you'd see the statements "the GM adjudicates the rules" and "the GM...

Because this causes player actions to feel like they have more weight. This makes those actions feel more meaningful. If the DM is actively changing their decisions in order to further, to suppress, or otherwise to change the players goals, then the world no longer feels as objective. This...

All this sounds to me like you see "the GM adjudicates the rules" and "the GM adjudicates the world" as railroading. Right? The factors here amount to what I'll call "the state of the world". E.g., if a priest follows a religion that forbids drinking, that is the state of the world. The GM...

I think these statements could be clarified. In sandbox play, decision-making is not in the hands of the GM. The players determine the goals, they determine the approach, they determine where to go, they determine what plotlines to explore. The GM adjudicates without regard to player goals. But...

This is the same thing EzekialRaiden was getting at yesterday--the need for a heuristic. And I think the answer is the same. For large sandbox worlds, the heuristic at a certain point is "the referee's judgement" and the game requires players to trust that as a heuristic to succeed. I've played...

Yes, but it's not that the world was a certain way and you chose the wrong approach. The reason why the approach was poor didn't exist until after you failed the roll. To me that doesn't give the feeling "oh I should have made a different choice and then I would have succeeded". If I made a...

Exploring the world makes it feel more alive. It gives a sense of discovery and makes the world feel realistic before and after the dungeon. Ime OotA is a pretty poor sandbox precisely because of the way it is setup. It gives the players a goal which is opposed to exploration and gives them...

I believe you if you say that's how you would respond to that kind of campaign. But for sandbox enthusiasts, the exploration is part of the fun.

Broadly yes, but the specifics will have a lot of variance because good GMs can run many types of games and what good GMing is will differ between them

As far as I've seen everyone believes there is good and bad GMing. There is just disagreement about the principles. For example, I disagree with you about the siege case.

All I can say is that I've played both sides of the table and seen it play out very differently. By "players construct the world" I mean that the players play an important role in constructing the narrative. In determining the structure of the world, what NPCs exist, what their relationships...

I think Bedrock has shown a pretty broad knowledge of social resolution systems so your assumption they had not was unmerited.

I'm sure what you're saying is in line with your experiences. However, I think you are seriously underestimating how differently these adventures can play out at the table. Don't want to stick on this too much. But between "the players construct the world" and "the players act in a fixed...

Yeah, definitely. I guess I'm also confused on how a guard possibly being susceptible to bribery is preferable to them definitely being susceptible if player agency is the real goal. After all, if the roll is made and they turn out not to take the bribe, wasn't it the DMs choice to adjudicate in...

Then, again, I don't get your complaint. I also don't get this. What the GM wrote is what happened before the players got there. How to investigate, who to interrogate, what clues to look for, how to deal with the different factions--these are all exercises of player agency. None of them are...