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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8283900" data-attributes="member: 16814">Not in my example it wasn't, so we're back to yes - you changed the example.  Again, I'm not sure what the point is of changing the example and declaring victory.  You have a new example, where the BBEG was turned into a weakling coward though some process of the PCs, but okay.Ah, good, we've acknowledge that the example is changed and this is your new example.  Cool.  I guess if you build your example so that the villain can 1) find out, and 2) will react by being a coward and hiding then the players can leverage that in skilled play -- they can discover that he will react this way and they can discover the secret that will cause it.  You'd have to plan this ahead of time, and then never take any actions to direct to this outcome and just hope it turns up in play.  Maybe the players never find the secret.  What you can't do, and still support skilled play, is change the scenario based on what the players do so that it tells a better story.Likely, in a skilled-play scenario, you won't really have any time to roleplay the BBEG.  I mean, maybe, but you certainly can't count on it.And, again, to be clear, I have no problem with your ideas -- they are pretty good ones.  I'm saying that they don't marry a curation of the story with the skilled play.You mean changed.  I'm not sure why there's this desire to claim that what happened in play can be altered to be more exciting but this isn't changing anything about what happened in play.  You've already had to change my example to add things so that your story works.  And, as I said, that's odd, because if you just change the example to match your conclusion then you're not really addressing the original issue.  You've sidestepped it.  It's an odd form of cherry-picking.You keep saying there's no clear distinction, but you aren't showing that this is so.  You're creating different play examples and saying these work (which isn't really clear, either) and so your idea is wrong.  It's like I say 2+2=4, and you say, no, 2+3=5, I have no idea where you get four from.  It's a little confusing.And, yes, no planning is perfect.  This isn't carte blanche to say that therefore any changes made are part of necessary ad libbing.  You only need to create in direct response to an oversight or error in planning.  The idea that you just ad lib a change to the BBEG because what the players did offers an opportunity you didn't see before is absolutely against the idea of skilled play.  This is because you've now added fiction that, in the nature of fiction, was always true, but the players could not have discovered it.  They could never have played in any way to find this new fiction you've created out, never have used it in a different way.  Instead, it's just you as GM that has come up with this and all for the idea that it makes a better story.  And, again, to be clear, this is perfectly fine and I do this stuff, too.  But, it's against the idea of skilled play.Why, if I may ask, is it so important to you that these two things not be in conflict?  As I said, such conflict is what allows different games to stand out by what they support.  This is true between tables in 5e and between game systems.  Does everything have to be always compatible?  What do you think you lose if skilled play and story curation conflict?  I don't lose anything, and knowing the conflict lets me pay attention to it and not suddenly and jarringly shift between priorities.</blockquote>

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