Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7976162" data-attributes="member: 16814">Here, you postulate that the only reason the PCs have to search the Daughter's hope chest is that previously established fiction told them this was a likely good option.  This kicks the can, though, and avoids the issue by postulating that previous fiction exists.  How did this previous fiction come to be -- was it established by the players or by the GM?  Here, your example is silent, but this is the crux of the issue.  If players cannot establish, a priori, that the widget is in the hope chest and then have that establishment tested in a way that success means it is true, then you're right back to the GM gating everything according to the DM's idea of the secret fiction.Secret fiction here means fiction the GM has established or establishes in the moment but that is secret from the players until the GM determines the situation ripe enough to reveal it.  It's the default was 5e plays.To head off complaints, I run 5e weekly, by the book with only some tacked on house rules for downtime, and love it.  I fully run 5e using secret backstory -- it's how that system is built to run, and you should run games how their designed to get the most from that design.  There's nothing inherently wrong with secret backstory, or GM decides as a core decision mechanic.  They aren't the only ones, and I absolutely avoid them like the plague (or COVID-19, to modernize) when I run Blades in the Dark.  Because BitD is built on a completely different approach to play, and you should play the game how it's built.You're still the gatekeeper to when/where/how the characters find it, though, whatever it is standing for right now.  And, you do this through maintaining secret fiction.  This is well and good, and how 5e works, so right on!  However, this is exactly what [USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER] is presenting alternatives to.  Quite often, in these dicsussions, people get hung up assuming that what someone else is saying reflects poorly on their play choices, and the natural result is to either deny or to claim that you do the thing to.  You don't, usually, and that's fine.  5e is a game about GM deciding based on secret fiction.  It's in it's bones.  Doing it this was is perfectly fine.  There are other ways, and you might be interested in looking at them. Or not, all good, the important part is you have fun.</blockquote>

Verification