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!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aenghus" data-source="post: 6816921" data-attributes="member: 2656">There are different sorts of pre-authoring and some types are more innocuous than others. Minutia of different cultures, day to day life, architectural styles, fashions, cooking, language, stories, ideals and taboos can really add to a game when used appropriately (a subjective judgement) and consistently. This is a very subjective topic, some referees, players and groups see this sort of detail as time-wasting nonsense preventing or delaying them from making progress (however they define "progress".Every little piece of detail is also a potential point of failure - it's amazing how a player can seize on a tiny point of detail and construct an elaborate theory around it, becoming very emotionally invested in it, or point it out as evidence of unseen antagonists in the setting, or evidence of inconsistency in the portrayal of the world.  Players who see the detail merely as a smokescreen to hide deliberate pre-authored traps to invalidate the hopes and dreams of the players and/or PCs probably aren't going to appreciate it as the creator intended.Then there are pre-authored elements which are created to be important or notable - mysteries to the solved, load-bearing plot elements to be protected or blown up, dark secrets to be discovered or kept secret, conspiracies to be exposed, opposed or aided, locations to be explored, wondrous artifacts to be found, etc. Such elements have a much higher chance to invalidate PC actions and goals than the incidental detail. There is no guarantee all the players will appreciate these elements as the author intended. Often the creator is emotionally invested in his creations, understandably, but I personally don't think the authenticity of the setting should be prioritised over everything else in a RPG. The more rigid and pre-authored the setting, the less freedom of action and proactivity it successfully allows. What matters it if PCs can do anything in a setting if the hidden backstory of that setting means it feels like 99% of all actions are irrelevant or futile.I find most players are very sensitive to failure especially in risky endeavours. In some cases it takes only a few failures of tasks that seemed reasonable to the players to expect success at (but maybe not the the referee) to make the players turtle up and get defensive and paranoid, which can slow a game down to a crawl.  Sometimes a plot element fails, for whatever reason, and can no longer serve the purpose for which it was originally intended. It seems tougher for pre-authored referees to adapt or let go of such a plot. I find this is a hard test for a referee - some stick to their guns, and go down with their leaky plot-ship, often accompanied by that campaign ending, or in worse cases the group breaking up.</blockquote>

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