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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7976177" data-attributes="member: 16814">A bit of goalpost moving.  The specific was that the previously established fiction was that the book was in the hope chest.  Of course there's previous fiction -- it's a game that build fictional stories. The actual example was that the GM has notes that the book is in the Captain's chest, but the players try to establish that it's in the Daughter's hope chest.  This, already, precludes your suggesting that the fiction is in a different shape and points to the daughter's chest.  But, even if we assume that, the issue still exists -- it's just moved further back up the chain to how did the knowledge that the book was in the daughter's chest come to be established.  We can move there and ask the same question -- was it because the GM decided this, or was it established by the players?  Arguing that it's previously established kicks the can and doesn't address the example.  It's not more flexible, at least in the terms [USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER] is discussing it.  I love and play 5e, and he's 100% right -- it does not allow players to establish binding fictional outcomes through the action declaration mechanics.  Those mechanics in 5e are explicitly "GM decides."Of, for sure.  Practice makes perfect, after all.  I'm certain you've a long history of running games based on secret fiction (IIRC, you ran FATE based on secret fiction, which is still amazing to me), and you've learned over that time many tips and tricks on how to do it well.  I know I have, both in length and depth of experience.  I'm quite adept at running games based on secret fiction, and I'm sure you are as well.  And, if that's all you've done or even the majority of your experience, it tends to put on blinders to other ways of doing things.  I know I had a hard time making the switch.  I bounced off of Burning Wheel the first time I looked at it (I've still not run or played it, but I grok it better).  I bounced off of skill challenges in 4e.  Kept thinking in terms of secret fiction and couldn't align how it's more freeform approach could work with secret fiction (it doesn't).  I managed to finally make the jump when I became interested in Blades in the Dark and had access to people, like [USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER], who championed different approaches to playing.  I violently disagreed with [USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER] on these exact kinds of topics just a few (maybe more, now?) years ago.  Then, it clicked, and I not only see how different approached to play than secret fiction work, but how secret fiction is anathema to those approaches.  And, it's made me more honest about how 5e and similar games work.  It doesn't make those game worse, it just means there are different games.  I still very much enjoy 5e, but I'm not blinkered that it's a flexible game system.  It does D&D very well, and D&D is a broad category of things, but it's also a pretty narrow approach to RPGs in that it's universally built on the GM decides as the core and only resolution mechanic.  That makes it flexible, so long as you're doing GM decides play, but it does not, at all, accommodate non-GM-decides play.  The only time D&D has changed this approach was with 4e, and there are plenty of threads of disagreement on that topic, if you'd care to look for them.</blockquote>

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