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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 7801667" data-attributes="member: 16586">A telegraph is not interesting stuff. It is a straight up threat of future danger. It says if you do not address me or fail to address me in a way that removes the danger stuff will happen and you most likely will not like it. It also does not require you to address it or determine how you should address it. I have a lot of experience using these sorts of techniques. Sometimes players choose to ignore the telegraph because they do not want to risk dealing with the situation or because they have other priorities. Sometimes they turn the situation to their advantage perhaps by luring monsters to the trap.Over all it is difficult to lead players do something in particular when you have no agenda for what you want them to do. I am just presenting a situation that demands their attention if only to decide to ignore it. That too will be meaningful. In the last game I run of Blades in the Dark the players were on heist with one of their allied crews. As a result of some failed rolls the allied crew was captured. At one point I described an NPC leveling their pistol at the head of the leader of the allied crew. That was the telegraph. They opted to do nothing and make a break for it. I then described the leader of their allied crew getting shot. Let's just say the crews were not allies after that day.Techniques should be judged on the basis of the play experience they are meant to deliver. It is not a black mark against a given set of techniques that they fail to deliver a play experience they were never designed to deliver.For instance while things like meaningless checks, fudging dice rolls, and manipulating the setting to achieve certain outcomes are not features I want in any game I play or run it does not mean those techniques have no value. It just means I have zero interest in the play experience they engender.For my part I do enjoy conflict neutral techniques sometimes, but only in the scope of Moldvay B/X style games where the GM acts as a referee without an agenda for how things should work out.</blockquote>

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