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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 8162170"><p>I don't think we disagree a whole lot. But what I will say is I think there are different procedures and methods for determining this stuff, and some are more grounded in setting down objective details than others. But the aim of the GM is to fold all those things into the living world, and to treat them as live forces. For example a random encounter doesn't exist until you roll it, that is for certain. But when I roll a random encounter I do try to give it a sound reason for being there. And if that encounter result is an existing NPC, then I look to that NPCs motivations, etc. But this is different from a sect that I've established in my notes as existing in Flower Bridge Village, at Red Lotus Manor. That exists in my mind and in my notes before the players go there or ask about it. I may get some clarity about the sect once the players arrive for sure. I don't want to paint an overly rigid image of what is going on just to fend off some of the more extreme edge cases being used in this discussion. And that is important, the interaction with the players cause me to think more clearly about the place. But those details aside, Red Lotus Sect existed, in the way things can exist in a game world (not actual real world existence) well before it was set in play. Sometimes I have a technique I employ where I write things down so they are set right before the players go there. For example if the players go into town looking for a fish monger, I make a quick mental map of whether that is reasonable (is there a water source with plentiful fish), then I decide if the there is a fish monger, who he is, some key details like his wife is cheating on him with the proprietor of the Fragrant Word Teahouse, etc. I do that because I want that stuff set in order to create the impression of a real world and to force myself to have fidelity to that world. It is true these details are being made up, but whether they are being made up two weeks before or two seconds before, it is coming into being in the setting prior to the players experiencing it directly. Now that won't happen in every case. you can't forsee everything, and you can't rigidly run a game just to adhere to a concept. But I do find these kinds of techniques and this approach generally quite useful because it does all help contribute to the sense of a world the players are exlporing, rather than one being created by their actions.</p></blockquote><p></p>

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