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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 8139131" data-attributes="member: 6785785">I prefer bold and daring to mean bold and daring. Not bold and daring when there’s little risk and then cautious and timid when there is risk. Just a preference, though. I’m not sure what this means. You sound here like player and character knowledge being in alignment is a bad thing, but then you go on to say they should always be as close to one another as possible.Is a player in your game free to decide background elements for their character? Can they decide what their character knows in some way? Must all of this flow from the GM? Wha? My character will be interested to learn all that I know. I’ll make it his top priority! This seems pretty much impossible. Sure, something like hills being north of the swamp is an individual thing that may or may not be addressed before play in some sense. But there’s simply no way to establish everything a character knows prior to play. Therefore, some of it will have to be established through play. Some prefer mechanics in their games that allow for this that goes beyond mere “ask the GM”.A RPG is a conversation where the participants create a shared fiction. I don’t like to use “story” because it kind of implies a set sequence of fictional events. Setting is an element of the fiction. I’m cool with all this, and it’s largely how I approach my games (though not always). Okay so there’s a few things here that jump out at me. First, thank you for acknowledging that this is a level of agency that you don’t allow. Second, what story is there that doesn’t involve the PCs? Third, setting aside the question of agency, what would be so bad if the player decided there are hills to the north? I mean, if the GM decides there are hills to the north, that’s fine, but if a player does, it’s awful. Why? Can’t the PCs go adventuring in the hills either way? What would be disrupted by this?</blockquote>

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