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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8339286" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't see how this is any different from traditional RPGing. In What is Dungeons & Dragons, published in the early 80s by Puffin Books, it was assumed that the players would author this sort of backstory for their PCs.Do many people approach PC backstory with the premise that a player must rely on the GM to establish this sort of information about immediate relatives?What I was referring to is the bit where the player declares that his/her PC hopes to meet his/her brother, having returned to their old stomping grounds. In some RPGs, there are ways of resolving this that do not depend upon largely unconstrained GM decision-making.My point is that BW has a system for resolving the action declaration Having returned to our homeland, I hope to meet my brother - the PC has a rating in Circles, there are rules for setting the obstacle, the check is made, and if it succeeds the meeting takes place while if it fails the GM establishes an adverse consequence which (i) follows from the established fiction and (ii) maintains pressure on the PC's (player-authored) Beliefs, Instincts and Traits.5e D&D has no system for resolving that action declaration, other than the GM deciding whether or not a meeting takes place. Or deciding whether or not to tell the player clues about the brother's location. Or deciding to roll a d% and have the brother show up on a 66+. Or . . .   (Some Backgrounds might be relevant here; but nothing I read online about 5e play makes me think that Backgrounds are a very prominent feature in typical 5e games.)Upthread, you said "Not having explicit control of the fiction does not equate to having to wait for the DM to tell you things." I responded that "5e D&D has no canonical procedure for resolving [the declaration of hope to meet the PC's brother, upon having returned to the homeland], other than the player asking the GM."And I stand by what I said. The player does have to wait for the GM to tell him/her things. And of course this generalises beyond hoping to meet one's brother. I seem to recall that the Captain of the Guards in this town has a fondness for black lotus. Or Isn't this where Evard's Tower is located? Or We'll enter the palace via a secret way. Or . . . There's no other process beyond Be told by the GM - and you haven't pointed to one - for this or for any other statement of hope or intent or belief about the PC's encounters with other elements of the gameworld.EDIT: To bring this back on-topic, given the fact that, in 5e D&D, the process for this sort of thing is that the GM decides, then advice on best practice would be upfront about this and discuss how to do it. Eg what's a good structure, in 5e D&D, for the GM to determine whether or not a desired encounter takes place? (In 4e D&D this could have been done via a skill challenge, and the example of a skill challenge in the Compendium gets close to showing how it might be adjudicated. What does the 5e analogue look like?)</blockquote>

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