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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BryonD" data-source="post: 6803430" data-attributes="member: 957">I was referring to the general statement you made.    But even in your specific case one being right and the other being wrong does not lock down the success/failure options.But this just comes back to the role-playing vs. being a author conversation.Gandalf had no say in whether or not Bilbo found the one ring.  When he showed up at the beginning of Fellowship and threw the ring into the fire, he was inside a story controlled by facts outside of himself.  If he had suddenly starting talking to the reader and announced that he decided it was not the one ring, that would be a very unsatisfying development.  Same thing for whether or not the brother was possessed willingly.Obviously a DM and players may plan outside of a game to agree to certain truths.  At a macro level this happens when the group decides to play D&D over Mutants and Masterminds.  If a player wants part of the plot to be that his brother was possessed against his will but this truth is not generally accepted, then this is fine.  But ultimately a great deal of pre-authorship is still mandatory for the experience to model "being that guy in these circumstances".  If the player can keep changing the rules in media res, then the resolution is completely divorced from the character's capabilities.  There is a great deal of merit to the idea of experiencing a story exclusively as an individual inside that story. The demand for significant pre-authorship in no way prevents players from contributing to the "pre" part of that.  But if the brother may or may not be possessed willingly and the mace may or may not be there, then this is a scenario that is distinctly different than what many people are looking for.I don't think it is reasonable to call having this extra-character powers "role playing" by any reasonable definition of role playing.That doesn't mean you can't flip back and forth from moment to moment between truly role playing and using forth wall powers.  But, to me, the experience of the role playing is contaminated if it can be by-passed.If Gandalf decides in the second that the ring is flipping into the fire that it is not the One Ring, then this does nothing to prevent the group from role playing an evening of dinner party at Bilbo's, or going off to explore Mirkwood and the Misty Mountains.  But the whole thing is tainted by the fact that everything is in the shadow of a change which Gandalf had no power to impose.To be clear, I make no claim that my way is better.  You may be having a thousand time more fun than I am and I have no idea what my limited capacity to appreciate your view is costing me.But I am saying it is important distinction and again results in people talking past each other.Being very highly pro "pre-authorship" is not in contrast to player input.  As stated, the players and DM coudl easily agree about the brother in advance ("pre-") or a group could easily decide "Hey, what if it WASN'T the One Ring?  Let's play that.".  But once the story is moving at the table the players are either in the role of characters within a set of circumstances or they are not.</blockquote>

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