NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Imaro" data-source="post: 6815374" data-attributes="member: 48965">EDIT: [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] ... moving forward can you not put multiple posters/answers in one post, it makes it extrememly hard to answer what is posted as a direct response to my own questions, thoughts, etc.  If notI can respect that but it means our conversation will probably die off as it's too much work splicing out the necessary posts to reply.  Thanks.While terminology may not be important to you personally...I think the terminology is pretty important in correctly conveying your thoughts, and especially the difference in concepts to others.  In fact without an understanding of terminology I'm not sure how you even begin to have a discussion...I think most games strive to achieve this, whether those desires are authored by the players, part of an agreed upon premise or selected from those available in a sandbox.  In fact I'm trying to determine what type of game actively wants for players not to be able to render the fiction in accordance with their desires via action declarations...Again... inevitable at a certain point if a campaign is to maintain a semblance of logical cohesion... it is only the scope/granularity/scale that is in question.I still don't get a clear understanding of the difference... and I disagree, the moment the GM gets it in his head he wants to use one of the things he's statted up outside of play... whether he acknowledges it or not he's putting constraints on action declaration... such as pre-determining an NPC will be an antagonist... or even that on the next failure he will find a way to use this particular idea, NPC, etc.  It's not in the moment at that point it's what I understand to be a pre-authoring of the fiction...  So a pre-drawn map is pre-authoring... even if certain areas of it haven't been used in the fiction yet?  Or is it only pre-authored once revealed?  Because it seems to be dancing on a razor thin line very similar to the prep you claimed before was no pre-authoring.  What do you see as the major differences between the two?If the backstory of an NPC has no effect in actual play... why write it up?  You keep using the word... "entirely" and I have to assume there is a reason for that.  Does this mean there are aspects of these NPC's and gods that are pre-authored.  As an example would it be possible for a player through action declaration to make the Raven Queen the goddess of daisies as opposed to death or is the fact that she is the godess of death a pre-authored fact?So in your game are the PC's ever surprised?  I don't mean one particular PC but the PC's as a whole... or does everything eventually work out to point to exactly what one of the PC's suspected... If that is the case I'm not sure I would enjoy a game like this.IMO You're pre-authoring a failure state to introduce this new form of the PC... just as a DM running a sandbox could state there's a 40% chance he comes back as an undead... but it's not pre-authoring anything because he didn't actually put him in the fiction or not yet...  I find the fact that you changed his weapon skill minor in the extreme (and him having the silver mace minor as well)... the fact that you statted him out, devised a way for him to enter the fiction, admitted you had a desire to use him as an antagonist outside of play, set his appearance up in an antagonistic manner, and so on... much more important than a minor change to a skill or the weapon he was carrying.    And again why write backstory except to use it?The fact that a Dark Elf... as opposed to a regular elf, a half-elf or whatever appeared... the fact that he was antagonistic... his backstory (which you said was not used but was still created, and as I asked before if you never use the stuff... why create it?) In other words you pre-authored this antagonist, it wasn't created by one of your players it was created by you...But finding a fouled water hole does not equate to... "Did not navigate safely and successfully through the desert"... it equates to found a fouled waterhole in a desert.  So I don't see it as vitiating the basic rule (at least as you are presenting them here) of the game.   I think you could narrate a successful check and still reinforce or reiterate on the dangers found in a desert.  It gives context, it gives color and it's actually pretty close to how most stories of heroic fantasy narrate such trips (as opposed to the hero not encontering any dangers whatsoever) and can provide consistency (and agency) for failure states that may happen if they traverse the dessert again... they've grown to know at least some of the dangers that lurk in a desert.  Personally I don't see it as GM verbiage... but then I also suspect this has alot to do with not just your DM style but the type of players you have as well.</blockquote>

Verification