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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6324234" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Whenever we have these conversations, I'm most struck by how oddly disconnected our perceptions of "what we're actually doing" are.  At its core, we're playing make-believe.  None of this stuff we're doing is vested with any life except for the life we invest it with.  I'm certain (I hope) that we can all agree on this.  However, it seems like there always sprouts up these (borderline impossible to get my head around) disagreements about "when" and "how" these things are given life.  I can't see any other answer to the "when" other than when they are introduced to the players, during play.  They don't exist in some state of quantum superposition until that happens.  This is make-believe.  They flat out don't exist until they are introduced to the players, during play.  Just because the GM may have some concrete, or even vague, conception of these make believe people and make believe places before they are introduced to the players (during play) means nothing.  They don't exist to the players.  And they can't exist such that they are "living, breathing" things to the players' characters until they are established in play.This seems so absolutely fundamental to me but I believe there is, nuanced or not, disagreement on this simple premise.  I try to wrap my head around what could lead to this disagreement and it seems that it may stem from an idea that I cannot, no matter how I might try, get on board with; that the "when" occurs when the GM conceives it.  The undiscovered places and NPCs, either in the GM's head or written down on scratch paper or in a notebook, actually transcend their nothingness and enter into this state of quantum superposition.  They now officially "exist" regardless of their pending status of actually being introduced in play.  And so its important that they "have life breathed into them at this point."  And that means mechanical iteration.So...I guess...if you as a player or as a GM hold to this premise, it then becomes paramount that the GM must have each and every thing existing (that may potentially be introduced in play) mechanically fleshed out using some kind of universal "this is the stuff things are made of and these are the processes they are governed by" build mechanics...otherwise...the make-believe stuff that hasn't been established in play to the players (and may very well never be) can't possibly be "real" or "legitimate"...even outside of play.  I wonder if there is overlap between folks who have internalized that premise and the folks who feel that Gods shouldn't be mechanically iterated because they should narrative relevance only, and the moment you invest them with mechanical architecture to facilitate their place in (violent) conflict resolution, their narrative relevance is subordinated to their "target of murderhobo orthodoxy" status.  Minion/Mook rules follow similar logic, only working a bit orthogonally.  They become such "deltas", relative to the PCs' high status, that their mechanical architecture needs to support that prescribed relevance within the (violent) conflict resolution mechanics, lest they cease to perpetuate their intended genre/narrative/game agenda interests.</blockquote>

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