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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 8162683">The bolded isn't true. This is why lots of GMs use encounter tables for example. My cities usually have multiple level encounter tables, including specific NPCs who live in the city, as well as specific gangs and sects. The way I work it is the players make Survival rolls going from different areas of the city, and if they fail, I would roll on one of the tables. The result is usually not something that I want in that moment. It is just what I get, and I try to get it to make sense. But the players also have the power to go looking for people, to make a point of moving through the city cautiously, or to hire guards to make sure they are not accosted by people. I think my major issue with how you describe the style I am descrbing to you, is you describe it very reductively.Also, how social interactions go, to my mind here, is very much in the hands of the players. Yes the GM is running the NPCs (the way PCs are run by players), but you are not just picking NPC reactions you want, you are supposed to be giving honest consideration to what the players say, do, etc. That matters. The way you describe it, it just sounds like the GM decrees the NPCs reactions. Anyone who has had an involved RP exchange in a game, knows it isn't a simple matter of fiat. It is a much more subtle, involved process. Again, here you just seem to be minimizing how much impact you have on this as a player. Obviously all that impact is through your character in this style, but that is still substantial (and to my mind feels more like having agency in the real world).Even when setting elements are merely declared by the GM, it is not simply what the GM wants. It is usually what the GM believes ought to be there (and that could vary by style, as there is more than one approach). That is a very important distinction. When you say it is just what the GM wants to be there. It produces a very different kind of game, where everything is a product of the GM's will. But a GM who is making those kinds of choices in service to something like a living world, a living adventure or the drama sandbox I mentioned earlier, isn't simply advancing his will.</blockquote>

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