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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7596858" data-attributes="member: 42582">Who thinks that's controversial?Well, if no one remembers then it's not going to come up, is it? So there won't be any headaches.But if someone remembers (whether literally, or by reference to notes) then there are no headaches.You're missing my point.For exactly how many days was Watson stationed in Afghanistan? I'm pretty sure A Study in Scarlet doesn't answer that question. So if the reader is curious, she has to just make it up. Suppose that you imagine it to be some days or weeks more or less than I do - why is that going to cause madness?In the context of my 4e game, was it summer or winter when the gnoll army killed the king of Nerath around 100 years ago? And was that exactly 100 years ago, or approximately? And for how long did the empire linger on after the king's death? Nothing in my campaign has answered these question, so each player can envisage it as s/he wants to. What does it matter?Supppose that an answer were established, it might turn out that one or more of the PCs had made a false assumption. How would that be unrealistic! And if they do it can be narrated in the appropriate amount of detail. But there'll always be something that could have been, but wasn't, investigated. And some detail that could have been, but wasn't, narrated. That's my point. What colour is the timber of the table? Do the chairs have carved or flat saddles? Are the door jams timber or arched stone? Etc.I thought you were objecting to the use of imagination in respect of unspecified fiction?But the map I use in my 4e or BW campaign (I don't have a map for my other games) is not an existing fiction to be explored - it's a list of prompts, or placeholders for possibilities. Which the players know.My answer would be: there's a big difference between a setting that we've created through play and one that's been invented by one person outside the context of play.</blockquote>

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