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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Imaro" data-source="post: 6811650" data-attributes="member: 48965">I have explained it numeorus times... either my answer doesn't satisfy you in some way, which I'd be open to discussing further... or you're just choosing not to accept the answer... especially since other posters have at least gotten the main gist around this point of contention (even if they don't agree).  Anytime the DM can decide the outcome of a failed roll with no restrictions outside... it must follow logically from the fiction (where he/she also decides what follows logically)... there is a higher probability that he will subvert the result (as opposed to a result that is clear cut, like you fail a climb check ... you fall) to go in the direction he wants the story to go in.Look at the effigy example... the player created a tribe to lead and once the DM gets his hands on it (even though he had countless options that wouldn't have removed control of the player's created fiction from the players hands) The DM decides that what would logically follow from the fiction ... is that the very tribe that was player created and character driven/led is now subverted so that it is trying to kill the character...  How is that not having the power to railroad the story in the direction you want to take it?   "No" to what exactly??... you pre-prepped a Dark Elf NPC... I mean you're stating it in the italics part of this very quote...You gave him a percentage chance (based on the Skill score of the PC) for the Dark Elf to appear in the terrain of the Abor-Alz... In a pre-prep campaign this is done all the time, though it is more likely to be based on independent variables as opposed to a skill check... for practical play purposes from the view of the players it serves the same purpose... creating a chance for the Dark Elf NPC the DM created to to appear.Just a note it was not at all clear that the failed check was what defined him as an antagonist... though I find this interesting since you state the Dark Elf only appears because of failed checks... so at what point can he appear and not be an antagonist?So wait was it the failed check that made him an antagonist, your choice to make him an antagonist, the nature of Dark Elves (which is pre-written), or was it feasible for them to interact with the Dark Elf... all of these can't be true at the same time, so which one(s) determined the NPC's attitudes towards the PC's? Wait in your original post you stated that you had decided you wanted to use a Dark Elf NPC... so had you decided beforehand you wanted to use a Dark Elf NPC or not?  If so, then how did you also create the Dark Elf NPC as content off the cuff due to a failure?  I think your play example and the methods/thoughts/etc. you used aren't terribly clear at certain points in your original post, which is usually the case when relaying information from the past to others (one of the reasons I dislike dissecting play examples in discussions as it leads to unclear back and forth as more and more clarification needs to be added).You're defining a pre-authored game too narrowly, again a pre-authored game can be prepped between sessions in response to the PC's actions in the previous games.  Correct me if I'm wrong but that's still pre-prep not improvisation.  In fact I would argue, for me at least, the best sandboxes (and how I've always run them) are updated, changed and respond to the actions of the PC's (among other things).</blockquote>

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