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<blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 7798207" data-attributes="member: 6779196"><p>And here’s the rub. As soon as you, the DM, start making decisions about what a character being portrayed by one of your players “would do,” you have overstepped what I believe to be the bounds of your role. Only the player gets to decide what their character “would do.” And there are plenty of reasons a character might do something that the player had them do based on external information. Again, if the players know their characters are in danger of being observed, they might search for the observer or shore up their attempts to hide themselves. All things it would be perfectly reasonable for characters who don’t know they are being observed might do.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Sure. And I try to limit my narration to what the characters can directly observe. But I’m also not going to get my nickers in a twist about the players realizing that the fact that I called for a Stealth check means there was a chance something might have observed them. Again, I try only to call for checks in response to players’ action declarations, so chances are I’ve telegraphed the presence whatever they might guess the check indicates anyway.</p><p></p><p></p><p>That’s cool. You do you. I’ll do me. We won’t do each other. Probably.</p><p></p><p>That was a good poem.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Again, too many variables for me to answer accurately. Could be one. Could be five. Could be zero. It depends on what actions the player takes and what the outcomes of those actions are. The nature of my style of DMing is that it’s highly context-dependent. I suppose if you really want to I could DM this scenario for you play-by-post style and that would indicate one way such a scenario might play out. I would imagine it would play out differently if Oofta played through it, or if Elfcrusher did, or if Bawylie did.</p><p></p><p></p><p>That’s a valid way to run the game. But it’s not the only valid way to run it. I ran it that way for years and struggled the whole time with issues I did not have the language or context to articulate. Then I learned of other approaches, tried them for myself, and found them more to my liking. But if your way works for you, maybe you’re better at it than I was, or maybe you value different things in an RPG than I do. Ultimate it doesn’t really matter why our tastes diverge, what matters is that we each enjoy the game in our own way.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Charlaquin, post: 7798207, member: 6779196"] And here’s the rub. As soon as you, the DM, start making decisions about what a character being portrayed by one of your players “would do,” you have overstepped what I believe to be the bounds of your role. Only the player gets to decide what their character “would do.” And there are plenty of reasons a character might do something that the player had them do based on external information. Again, if the players know their characters are in danger of being observed, they might search for the observer or shore up their attempts to hide themselves. All things it would be perfectly reasonable for characters who don’t know they are being observed might do. Sure. And I try to limit my narration to what the characters can directly observe. But I’m also not going to get my nickers in a twist about the players realizing that the fact that I called for a Stealth check means there was a chance something might have observed them. Again, I try only to call for checks in response to players’ action declarations, so chances are I’ve telegraphed the presence whatever they might guess the check indicates anyway. That’s cool. You do you. I’ll do me. We won’t do each other. Probably. That was a good poem. Again, too many variables for me to answer accurately. Could be one. Could be five. Could be zero. It depends on what actions the player takes and what the outcomes of those actions are. The nature of my style of DMing is that it’s highly context-dependent. I suppose if you really want to I could DM this scenario for you play-by-post style and that would indicate one way such a scenario might play out. I would imagine it would play out differently if Oofta played through it, or if Elfcrusher did, or if Bawylie did. That’s a valid way to run the game. But it’s not the only valid way to run it. I ran it that way for years and struggled the whole time with issues I did not have the language or context to articulate. Then I learned of other approaches, tried them for myself, and found them more to my liking. But if your way works for you, maybe you’re better at it than I was, or maybe you value different things in an RPG than I do. Ultimate it doesn’t really matter why our tastes diverge, what matters is that we each enjoy the game in our own way. [/QUOTE]
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