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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 8155552" data-attributes="member: 85870">I highlighted the bold sentence, because this is the absolute heart of everything we've been talking about for 121+ pages of conversation. Upon reflection, you identified a potential instinct, or approach to play, that you ultimately rejected. The question is, why did you reject it? What need did you fulfill by rejecting the proposal that, "Yes, maybe Turlk really does know the geography"? From what I can gather, it was rejected through some notion of, "Well, it doesn't feel plausible, so even though I'm presenting this village as a place of interest, the 'objective reality' of Turlk being a kid who doesn't know geography forces me to make it harder for the PCs to actually travel to said village." Which is fine---just understand the trade-off going on here.Saying, "Yes, Turlk really does know geography, and he can point it out to you on a map," now gives the players more ability to push their in-game agendas through their characters.They've expressed interest in the village---why set up barriers to that interest?Why not just say "Yes!"? Was there anything really at stake in the fiction? Was there any momentous happening riding on whether the players could just get that knowledge from Turlk, instead of being forced to go through some other information gathering rigmarole to actually find out where said village is?If the players really were expressing interest about the village in question, why block the players from exploring it? Why "bait the hook" by presenting this potential village as place of interest, but then immediately block access to said village, because "Turlk doesn't really know geography"?The point of games like PbtA, BitD, Burning Wheel, etc., is to push GM's in the direction of just saying "Yes"---and then backing it up with mechanics that allow the players to keep pushing the agenda.And yes, when you first start trying stuff like this out, it does feel uncomfortable. Until you suddenly realize that player engagement increases when they can just start getting to the stuff that matters to them, instead of playing shell games with the GM about "who actually knows where the village is".I didn't explain this well at all, but I think the example [USER=7016699]@prabe[/USER] shared and my response above is going in the thought train I had in mind. You're right, players can only interface with the in-fiction reality as it is presented to them.What I was trying to get at is, so much of in-fiction reality is controlled by the framing.Either through or intentionality, negligence, or lack of foresight, it's incredibly easy for GMs in "traditional" RPG play to frame scenes such that any potential opportunities for the players to act in ways that speak to the concerns of the PCs are instantly blocked---and there is no mechanical recourse."Turlk is a kid, he doesn't understand geography" was the in-fiction reality as presented in [USER=7016699]@prabe[/USER]'s game. If that's the in-fiction reality my PC is framed into, then sure, that's all I have to work with. And in D&D 3, it doesn't matter if I feel there's something at stake in finding that village; no amount of "Gather Information", "Perception," or "Intimidation" checks are going to get that information out of Turlk. The mechanics, along with the GM techniques/presentation/assumptions of gameplay coded into D&D 3 provide no interaction points for me, as a player, to get information from Turlk if I feel there's something important at stake in getting that information.Thus, if I can't mechanically get the information now, due to the framing of the scene, my only other courses of "agency" are: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Make new action declarations to find someone who actually DOES know where the village is. But now I'm wasting precious real time at the table to do that. When you only play 8 hours a month, every second counts. Is this potentially more "realistic" in terms of the "in-game fiction"? Eh, maybe. But now not only am I not getting to pursue something of interest, I'm being forcibly required by the GM to waste real game time until I do get to pursue it. And I'm sorry, that stopped being fun sometime around 2006 for me. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Enact some form of social engineering to "Game the GM" / play "mother may I" so I can get what I actually want.</li> </ul>Whereas, in Ironsworn, a "Gather Information" move looks like this: So tell me, which option allows the player more agency?One final observation --- Over the past 3 years, I have consciously attempted to implement "Say yes or roll the dice" as a core principle while GM-ing Savage Worlds, but it's hard. Because there's no systematized backing of that principle in the game mechanics. It's still too easy to catch myself thinking, "Well, that wouldn't be immediately apparent to the character," or, "I can't just share that with the players NOW." I have to constantly check against my own instincts---"Well, are you sure you can't share that? Does this play into what the players are looking for?"And having experience with GM-ing D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder 1e, I know the same would be true for those systems.</blockquote>

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