Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6778484" data-attributes="member: 27160">This nicely encapsulates, for me, where I have real problems with the &quot;GM's world&quot; paradigm. The shop &quot;should&quot; be there according to what metric? It seems to me to be the GM's opinion, based on the usual human-brain cocktail of heuristic and bias, world model and belief. So the cobbler is there and the haberdasher isn't, and the player looking for the former is successful for thinking of something the GM likes whereas the one looking for the latter is SOL because they are looking for something the GM doesn't like. That just doesn't comport with my conception of &quot;fair&quot;. Or of &quot;fun&quot;. Maybe for others it does - but for me it fails.This is why I would prefer a systematic or perhaps customary &quot;fail forward&quot;. The stakes stop being &quot;will you (the player) be able to pursue this plan and see if it works&quot;, and become &quot;what number of difficulties will you have to overcome to succeed?&quot; This requires breaking down what the character really needs, and ensure it is available - at a cost to be determined by events and die rolls.In looking for a haberdasher it's likely that you are actually in need of a hat. So roll Streetwise to see if you find a haberdasher. If the roll fails you don't find a haberdasher*, but you do find a hat of just the sort you're looking for. It's being worn by a richly dressed and important-looking man with a fine-looking servant and a bodyguard in tow... What do you do now?Is this a matter of taste? Absolutely. But I hope you can see that mine isn't either kooky or unreasonable. I work from the assumption that yours isn't, either, from your point of view.*: Note that this sidesteps the issue of whether there is a haberdasher in town or not. Apart from the practical gaming advantages of leaving that fluid, how would the character(s) know?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Balesir, post: 6778484, member: 27160"] This nicely encapsulates, for me, where I have real problems with the "GM's world" paradigm. The shop "should" be there according to what metric? It seems to me to be the GM's opinion, based on the usual human-brain cocktail of heuristic and bias, world model and belief. So the cobbler is there and the haberdasher isn't, and the player looking for the former is successful for thinking of something the GM likes whereas the one looking for the latter is SOL because they are looking for something the GM doesn't like. That just doesn't comport with my conception of "fair". Or of "fun". Maybe for others it does - but for me it fails. This is why I would prefer a systematic or perhaps customary "fail forward". The stakes stop being "will you (the player) be able to pursue this plan and see if it works", and become "what number of difficulties will you have to overcome to succeed?" This requires breaking down what the character really needs, and ensure it is available - at a cost to be determined by events and die rolls. In looking for a haberdasher it's likely that you are actually in need of a hat. So roll Streetwise to see if you find a haberdasher. If the roll fails you don't find a haberdasher*, but you do find a hat of just the sort you're looking for. It's being worn by a richly dressed and important-looking man with a fine-looking servant and a bodyguard in tow... What do you do now? Is this a matter of taste? Absolutely. But I hope you can see that mine isn't either kooky or unreasonable. I work from the assumption that yours isn't, either, from your point of view. *: Note that this sidesteps the issue of whether there is a haberdasher in town or not. Apart from the practical gaming advantages of leaving that fluid, how would the character(s) know? [/QUOTE]

Verification