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The challenge with this formulation is that it often doesn’t make the character seem like an everyman. On the contrary, it highlights how abnormal and special he is. If I were to traverse a battlefield unarmed and unarmored and not get hit, you wouldn’t conclude that I’m a normal dude. You...

The specific example was the players not biting ONE campaign hook. In a sandbox, that SHOULD be unremarkable. Why are you acting like it means that « the DM should always try to please every single player even if it means the DM and the other players are less happy with the game »?

No, combat is a more complex part of the game because it has more rules.

As does Forbidden Lands, I recall.

My players would probably accept it, depends on the game.

Pasion de las pasiones has a couple of mechanics like this, but its inspiration is telemovelas, so romance is part of the package.

There’s a big difference between Jim (or Jane) puts themself into danger every day and Jim (or Jane) has never had an involuntary reaction to fear. IF you are making an appeal to realism, the more realistic stance is that there are times when the character will have an involuntary reaction to...

And if you roll a 1 on your Climb check, that is what happens. But most cases, it seems to me that a character that is trained in Climbing has a pretty good idea of how difficult a climb is.

It is a good point about freely sharing information. I’m running « Beyond the Crystal Cave » - a fun module that I’ve run several times in the past. The inciting incident is a tribe of elves on the brink of war with a town of human. The elves believe that the humans kidnapped an elf and the...

I can live with that. The principal reason I proposed GM-curated rather than GM-created was because I thought peoponants of the style would object to the term « GM-created »!

I don’t think the players think they are being objective or would make claims to that effect.

It’s also more than that. It provides a framework to investigate whether people are OK with pushing certain boundaries in a game. In the past, I would not include child death in my games because most of my players are parents. This provides a tool to check if in a horror game, the players...

I mean, it feels like you are being deliberately obtuse here. Let me illustrate with a different example. I like historical fiction, you like fantasy fiction. If I were to describe my preferred literature as « literature where the characters act like real people », you would reasonably push...

You were the person that brought up « character-centric » approach to characterize the perspective you disagreed with, while labelling the perspective you agreed with as the « internally consistent » approach. My point is that labelling your preferred approach « the internally consistent »...

If your intention is not to be condescending would in not be more accurate to ground the descriptions based on what makes them distinct rather than points they share? As I already responded, making a consistent world is important for all GMs. I agree that « character-centric » is an accurate...

I’m simply pointing out the inherent contradiction that you seem to be willing to accept fantasy realism in one case but not in the other. Maybe they are under a fey geas that requires them to drink alcohol with the first person they see. That seems on brand for fey.

Let me express this differently: If a certain outcome enhanced a character’s narrative but flat out contradicted a fact that had been established in play, do you believe that the proponents of character-centric play would discard the fact? I can’t speak for everyone, but definitely in my case...

You have argued that a religion that would condemn a person’s family to hell if that person (but not the family) drinks a glass of mead under extreme duress is within the realm of fantasy realism. Why isn’t a stranger that has such a pressing need that you take a drink that they would threaten...

Here’s the post. It was an example from this thread, not from a real game, but it mimics how such traits come to be in actual games, particularly in sandbox games. The PCs interact with tons of minor NPCs that the GM creates on the fly and therefore don’t have existing traits. The PCs...

How does character-centric story-telling fail to prioritize internal world logic? And aren’t you aware that saying « my approach prioritizes internal world logic » comes off incredibly condescending? Would you agree that the posters that you are disagreeing with ALSO consider that their...