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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6208921" data-attributes="member: 42582">Conan does this all the time. And isn't REH an instance of the genre we're aiming for? I don't really follow this, for two reasons. First, perhaps the PCs are going to meet George Washington or Abraham Lincoln, both national rulers widely regarded as just and righteous who nevertheless presided over a polity that was filled with slaves brutally treated by their masters. Second, what reason do we have to think that this is the kingdom that was in play in  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s scenario?You keep reiterating the point about planning as if it is a dramatic revelation! Whereas I have already noted, multiple times, that part of the point of "indie" style is to push decision making out of the planning + prep part of play, and into the action resolution part of play.If that action resolution includes gathering rumours, then that is part of play. Whether the rumours were true or not would depend upon both the mechanics used and the stakes set.Perhaps the PC does know - but the player doesn't know everything the PC knows. Now why would the player not know? Perhaps because transition scenes take time to play out at the table, and the group prefers to play out action scenes.The former - perhaps. You would have to ask Manbearcat how he handles player-introduced content. The latter - I wouldn't have thought so in the typical game, as it is retrospectively reframing the stakes.You do realise that you are in the odd position of trying to tell Manbearcat that - from reading a post that he wrote to convey his recollections of a scenario that he ran - that you have a better grasp of the stakes that had been set than he does. That doesn't make much sense to me.You are correct that the roll was to Bluff the drake, but the clear intention was to persuade the Chamberlain of something.I don't see why - two PCs carrying both a sword and a dagger, but one of whom attacks only with the dagger and the other who attacks only with the sword, are not identically mechanical at the moment which counts (namely, action resolution).But anyway, your conception of mechanical identity isn't all that relative to my preference that the personality of a character find mechanical expression.It seems to me here that you are agreeing that player and PC goals can come apart.As I indicated, I prefer an approach in which the best thing for the paladin to do is not "torch to the groin". There are a range of more or less formal ways to achieve this result.All this suggests that you have no understanding at all of what I'm talking about, and is close to contemptuous. Have you actually read any of the multiple actual play posts that I have linked to?The correct inference would be that I prefer not to play a game in which the mechanically best approach for my honourable paladin to stop the dragon is to sacrifice people. That should be a choice that is driven by considerations of theme and value that then inform the mechanical framing. And I would not like a GM who framed me into that sort of situation without regard to those matters of theme and value.Conversely, if I am playing a foul-mouthed fighter, then why am I trying to persuade the king via Diplomacy? And why have I been framed into that scene? Until you give me some answers to those sorts of questions, how do you expect me to explain how I might GM such a scenario?I didn't say that I had to be satisfied in that way. I was working within  [MENTION=58197]Dausuul[/MENTION]'s idea of rolling the dice - my pont was that, if a GM decides to roll the dice to see if a wish is available, s/he has decided that a wish can be obtained within the game.Personally wishes are something I prefer to handle with a great deal of care. I'm not the biggest fan of the traditional D&D approach to wishes.  [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] would not have any trouble learning whether or not wishes were available this way in a game that I was running.</blockquote>

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