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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hriston" data-source="post: 9051805" data-attributes="member: 6787503">I’m going to disagree with [USER=6779196]@Charlaquin[/USER] here that “I cast message at [whomever] and whisper [whatever].” is necessarily a sufficient description of both action and intention in all cases. An intention might be implicit in the words or generalized description of the words that are whispered, but the description is all action. For example, of the stated goals, only the first, to “get some information”, is implicit in the questions “Why are you really doing this?” and “Do you really follow the head leader?” which are also more specific about the type of information desired, rendering a separate statement of this intention superfluous. I’d say that social interactions often have this dynamic where the words or description of the words spoken by the character often reveal the character’s intentions, but not always.The second stated goal, to “change the guard’s mind”, is only somewhat implied by the words “Do you not realize that what you are doing is wrong and futile?” It leaves open the possibility of some misunderstanding about what the character is trying to accomplish, so I believe the action declaration would benefit in clarity of meaning from the addition of that subtext. This would allow the player to define what success looks like for the character, so the DM could adjudicate the success of the character's goal (changing the guard’s mind), not just the character's action (casting a spell and whispering some words). A benefit for some of this technique is it gives the players an input into the trajectory of the fiction, allowing them to more directly shape the direction of the  game by giving voice to their aspirations for their characters and their characters aspirations for themselves. A possible drawback for some groups might be a clash with a preference for “show don’t tell” in that group’s fiction because it requires the player to reveal things about the character’s inner mental state which otherwise might remain hidden from the group.</blockquote>

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