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Message: <blockquote data-quote="robconley" data-source="post: 8165639" data-attributes="member: 5636">I encourage players to ask question about the locale, creatures, and characters they are dealing with because my description are not always complete enough for them to have the information to make a decision. So they ask.  With this particular session it was run as a one shot with several players who have not experience my Majestic Wilderlands setting before. So at the beginning there were a lot of questions and coaching get everybody up to speed on the situation and to the point where had a enough information to go on (and have fun).Because it was a one-shot the inciting incident, the Bishop's Court, was contrived. A compromise given the circumstances of the session.  The player were given a job to do that led them to the site of the adventure. Everything that occurred after they encountered the young couple in the road and fought the bandit was up to the players. When I first ran the adventure as part of a campaign, it was the encounter with the young couple and the bandit fight that was inciting incident. Also this session was unique for me that it was run theater of the mind. Which I usually don't do. Instead I use maps, miniatures, and battlemaps a lot to minimize the questions. But that doesn't mean question are not asked. Usually they more precise and detailed about the immediate surrounding or character they are dealing.And again it not because the player need to guess what is in my mind. It is because descriptions both verbal and using props are incomplete and thus the players may not have everything they ought to know as their character. I am only human and can't always guess correctly at what they think is important.Last novices to my games often don't get right away that I am prepared to answer questions they might have. I rarely give answers that amount "just because". That if they want to details, I am willing to provide them. But on average I use my experience refereeing to make it easier by highlighting thing I found players found important in the past. It made easier with this adventure because that was my fifth run through.If you played in one of my session I am afraid you will be disappointed if you try to figure what may notes or thinking is. I generally turn the question it around and ask what it is you want to do or are looking for. Then go from there. I am afraid we will have to disagree on how the expansive the two approaches are. My approach allows any player to do what their character are capable of within the setting of the campaign. Whether it is the Majestic Wilderlands, The Third Imperium, Star Trek, etc. I try to create a pen & paper virtual reality that can be explored as the player wishes constrained only by the fact is with a small group of other players with their own interest. True a player can't say "I flap my arms and fly" without a reason arising from how the setting works. But as a person existing a world there is a hell of lot of things they can do as long as they break free of thinking that there are things they ought to be doing. Like trying to guess how I think about a situation when what matters is what they think about it and that they have the information about what there.</blockquote>

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