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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6308087" data-attributes="member: 42582">Likewise.This is an interesting conceptual framework.Translating it into my own terms that I'm more familiar with, I relate your "mimesis" to my sense of genre expectations plus "common sense" determining the general course of events, with the GM's authority to frame situations and narrate outcomes in accordance with the action resolution mechanics providing the "diegnesis" component of interjected content.An interesting example.The closest I can recall coming to this scenario in actual play was around 6 years ago, at the climax of a long-running Rolemaster campaign. The PCs had finally achieved their goal of entering into the outer void to defeat an elder evil who resided there. The evil being had been held at bay for eons by the efforts of a warrior god, who in the mortal world was a dead god, having heroically sacrificed himself to prevent the elder evil breaking through the walls of reality, but who in the parallel dimension of the outer void was locked in an eternal struggle with the evil being, forever suffering and dying without relief. The PCs has first encountered echoes of the dead god around 10 or more levels ago (so probably 4-odd years of play earlier) and they had been a recurring feature in play and an increasing focus of the players' efforts. One of the PCs in particular - the paladin - had become dedicated to freeing the "dead" god from his entrapment in the never-ending voidal war.So when they broke through into the void, and beat the elder evil, they knew it couldn't last. They couldn't escape the eternal cycle of entrapment anymore than the dead god could. And so, in order to free the dead god, the paladin decided to take his place. And this was a free and deliberate choice by the player of that PC, to sacrifice his character in order to end the suffering of an NPC, the dead god.Then we reconvened for the next session. And the players had been discussing, and discussed further during the session, and they came up with an alternative plan: first, the PC wizards would pool their spell abilities to create a simulacrum of the paladin (this was straightforward spellcasting mechanics, though in a moderately intricate combination - in 3E terms think a subtle combination of spells and meta-magic effects); then, they would trick a fallen Lord of Karma into using an artefact they had custody of (the Soul Totem) to create a full karmic replica of the paladin in his simulacrum, so that it would have the metaphysical capacity to take the dead god's place in the eternal fight within the void.Tricking the fallen Lord of Karma was again mechanical in resolution (using the game's social mechanics) but using the artefact in that way was not mechanical. The artefact was a story element with no mechanical definition, and the players' plan was an extrapolation from that established story. As GM, I had to decide whether or not it could work. And I decided that it could - the extrapolation was a natural one that followed completely naturally from what had gone before, and to decide otherwise would actually have contradicted pre-established story elements about the function of the artefact and the reason the various Lords of Karma had fallen in the first place.So the campaign had a happy ending rather than a sad one: the "dead" god was freed from the void, his place taken by a karmically-laden simulacrum. The player of the paladin was able to narrate his PC's endgame in the more idyllic terms he had hoped for, of founding a monastery dedicated to the dead god, located in what had been a lighthouse built on an island that was in fact the giant "stone" body of the "dead" god in his final resting place on the mortal world before entering into the void.On this example I think I'm closer to [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]. I would be hesitant to narrate an auto-fail for the player, even with the sort of backup option you describe.The closest I've come to this was in <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?353496-First-time-godslayers-PCs-kill-Torog" target="_blank">a session earlier this year</a>. The PC, a servant both of Vecna and of the Raven Queen, had taken temporary control of a pool of dead souls. He was expecting them to begin flowing to the Raven Queen, but then became aware that Vecna was trying to intervene and steal them. The medium that Vecna was using was the PC's imp familiar, which had the Eye of Vecna implanted in it. The player had to choose whether his PC let Vecna have them, or redirected them to the Raven Queen. He chose the latter. And (as GM) I decided that Vecna punished him by channelling his fury through his Eye, killing the imp.One consideration that was crucial to my decision was that the player knew that he was choosing to cross Vecna; knew that the Eye was in his imp and that Vecna was using this as a conduit; and had [urhttp://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?348410-Should-this-PC-implant-the-Eye-of-Vecna]deliberately implanted the Eye in his imp rather than himself[/url] precisely to be able to draw upon its powers without running the risk of being punished by Vecna himself.If your Vader scenario had these sorts of elements, I might adjudicate more along the lines you describe.This all relates to the same point - player knowledge. I would be hesitant to have the player learn whether or not his/her plan can succeed, in virtue of the gameworld backstory, only at the point of resolution. I generally prefer to have the players make their choices against a backdrop of known story elements, but in which they can't achieve everything they want (or, at least, not easily or obviously).In your most recent posts discussing player knowledge with [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION], I agree with what you're saying.In these cases the players have knowledge. The question of player knowledge is important for me.</blockquote>

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