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I just wanted to respond to this. I imagine your second noble would be very interested in granting the first one an audience and hearing what he has to say and learning whether it can be of some benefit to himself. What happens in the meeting might depend on the power dynamic between them. They...

Because it's only "working" when it actually happens, and you can't extrapolate nonsensical fiction like a personal messenger you know by name waiting in every thorp, hamlet, and hyperspace depot in the multiverse to deliver your messages for you, unless that's the fiction the group wants to...

I disagree. The rules aren't an excuse for behaving like an ass-hat, and it isn't the job of the rules or houserules to correct such behavior.

But do you? Does this weirdness happen in your actual games? If not, then why are you complaining about it?

Well, the feature (Criminal Contact) doesn't say "100% of the time, 24-7". It says you know people who can deliver messages for you with everything knowing people entails, including sometimes you might have to look around to find them depending on circumstance. I don't think there'd be anything...

Well, I have an existing background feature published by WotC that says I know this person. Is that good enough for you?

As long as you don’t mind waiting up to two weeks at this point. You seem to be using the rule as a source of potential fiction. I.e. an in-world "physics engine". It wasn’t designed for that purpose. Thus the user error you’re experiencing. There’s no reason to think the rule creates fiction...

Here's an idea of something like what the plot might turn out to be (although I was thinking of a TV series when I wrote it down) from my OP to this thread:

I didn't say you know the local messengers everywhere/on all planes. I'm pretty sure I've already said this too, but you (meaning your PC) know the local messengers in the places where you (the player) use the feature. That's it, and it isn't nonsensical. Seriously? It makes perfect sense. It's...

I have 100% chance of knowing my friend in Barcelona whom I've known since we went to high school together. When I visit Barcelona there will be no chance of me not knowing her.

Are you saying you allow the player to ask if they can use their feature? Wow, that's so generous of you! ;) But seriously, how would it be "extra work" for the DM to scrap the parts of what's been written about the port that contradict what the player asserts and which (obviously) haven't been...

I don't think we're talking about the same thing. I was talking about the player having to ask the DM questions about details they made up about the port, and my question was why the DM was being coy. Why not share the awesome fiction you've invented with your players, so they can make informed...

Bible, recovering from her speechlessness, over-awed momentarily by the giant's enormity, steps forward, giving a short, polite bow, and addresses him in the most formal Giant speech she can muster, ::I yam Bible, my lord prinsk, Reeve of the humble village of Steelport which for many a year has...

It’s unclear what you’re saying here. Are you saying there’s no problem with the feature working under the conditions I described in my post? If so, then you should agree that the “problem” being talked about for many pages now in this thread is not a problem with any particular background...

Prove that the "problem" ever existed anywhere but in your head. That's not a rules problem. It's a social contract problem. Players don't need rules to tell them they can break the social contract. What specific problems are you talking about here? :)

Advocating? No, I think everyone should play how they like. The point I made up-thread is that I'm incredulous that DMs in general are prepping a level of detail in the setting that would lead to a conflict with the kinds of details the background features invite the player to invent.

Going back and reading your post, it seems you mean something like making the ship stop where the character thinks it does, and I'm still not following because it's trivially true that the character thinking something does not make that thing true in the fiction. What makes it true in the...

You don't need a background to have skills, feats, languages, or tools, and I can have my character behave any way I want. I don't need a background for that. I like the 2014 backgrounds because they give the player something you can't get anywhere else in the game.

Thanks for clarifying what you meant by narrative control. As you can see from my clarification of what I was calling dysfunctional, it had pretty much nothing to do with that or with anything else in the rest of your post.

I don't know. You tell me. It's unclear from your description how any of this is being established in the game's fiction. The point of your example seems to be if you force me to play in your railroad then I'm not allowed to make any meaningful decisions for my character, which isn't surprising...