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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7976520" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't feel the force of the distinctions you're drawing here.The captain's trunk and his daughter's hope chest are just placeholders I came up with to make a point. I could equally have said, as I've also been doing, Place X and Place Y. Or I could say the widget is in the captain's house and the players look for the widget on the captain's ship. Or I could say that the widget is in the possession of the captain (ship, house, trunk, who knows?) and the players look for the widget in the cathedral's baptismal font.My point is that, in 5e D&D as canonically run, the players cannot establish the stakes of we look for the widget in the font. All they can do is find out what the GM says in response. If the GM answers A retributive angel materialises in anger well I guess that's the GM's prerogative. But I would find it poor GMing to (i) do that and then (ii) be surprised that combat started.You are the one who has introduced the notion of powerlessness. I have set out, in multiple posts, the power they have: namely, they can ask the GM to share with them what s/he knows to be the case about the fiction. I say ask deliberately because they can't oblige because it always open for the GM to call for a check, and if it fails to then refrain from sharing (or perhaps to say something that is actually not true about the fiction, eg if s/he decides that a failed roll means the PCs misperceive something).I don't quite know what contrast you're drawing here.I would think of a "story element" as (say) the book or other widget, the font, the trunk, the hope chest, the ship, the captain, the daughter, the PCS, etc. The impression I get from your accounts of your play is that you as GM largely control the introduction of these into the shared fiction - with the PCs as an exception.It is possible to have the introduction of story elements connected to action resolution. For instance, in Apocalypse World if the player succeeds on a check to have his/her PC read a charged situation then s/he can requre the GM to tell her which enemy in the situation is the biggest threat. This obliges the GM to introdcue a new element into the fiction - namely, one which explains why that enemy is so dangerous. Pages 110-11 of the AW rulebook also tell the GM how s/he should approach this:Of course the real reason why you choose a move [ie introduce a new element or consequence into the fiction] exists in the real world. Somebody has her character go someplace new, somebody misses a roll, somebody hits a roll that calls for you to answer, everybody’s looking to you to say something, so you choose a move to make. Real-world reasons. However, misdirect: pretend that you’re making your move for reasons entirely within the game’s fiction instead.This is an example of the GM being obliged to adjudicate the action in a fashion that sets the stakes by reference to the player's concerns (who is the most dangerous enemy here?) and which obliges the GM to manage the unfolding shared fiction in such a way that the player's concern is a key part of it - that is, if the check succeeds then the GM has to introduce an element into the fiction that directly responds to and brings to life within the shared fiction the player's concern.In this sort of RPG, the player's have more responsibility for what happens in the fiction. Eg if a player declares and succeeds in an action to learn who is the bigget threat, s/he can hardly complain if the GM starts telling her about the heavily armed bodyguards!</blockquote>

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