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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 6147457" data-attributes="member: 87792">I don't know about the rest but that's not what I'm suggesting.  What I'm suggesting is not only that the player says they do something within the rules the answer should be yes unless there is hidden in-game information (in which case no is still within the rules), but that if the player says that they do something plausible outside (as opposed to against) the rules, the answer should still be to say yes or roll the dice.And as a DM I do not see this as being stripped of my power.  I still have nigh on absolute power over the setting and if I want to create a parade of blue elephants dancing down the street out of thin air I can create a parade of blue elephants dancing down the street out of thin air, and my players will treat them as if they were real or their PCs will get trampled.  I'm honestly shocked by the idea that I need any more power than this.  And to me as player or DM, the best experience comes from all the PCs engaging with the world on their terms* (or occasionally on the terms of the NPCs they've annoyed) and although individual sessions might be more fun if the DM overrides things I'm soon going to get bored of the campaign from either side of the screen.Yes, I do put my money where my mouth is.  For the game two sessions ago I prepared what would (and will) be a short investigation followed by a fight on top of the Lightning Rail (Eberron campaign).  The first session I threw in what was meant to be a mysterious clue to the ongoing arc-plot.  Something appearing, watching, then vanishing.  And dropping these in repeatedly to make them paranoid.  My players proceeded to roll natural 20s every time they were looking at the minor clue (I barely exaggerate.  They managed four natural 20s in the session, all on perception checks).  With the result I was improvising like mad and they gained quite a few clues as to what is going on on a wider scheme before eventually reaching a dead end.  The last session I ran was meant to be the same investigation, and I gave them a few clues - but rather than looking for the supply side (as I pointed them at) they chose to look for the demand.  With the result that rather than the flamboyant fight on top of the lightning rail I'd planned, they ended up in a rather incendiary fight in a match factory (that is now, not unsurprisingly, a pile of rubble) that I invented on the spot.  The match factory having been brought in because it entirely fitted the narrative (what would you want slaves for in a city?  The jobs no one wants to do because they are dangerous and disfiguring. Like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phossy_jaw" target="_blank">making matches</a>.)  And I had the matches before I even knew there would be a fight there - without the PCs heading off in the "wrong" direction I'd never even have thought of the fight in the match factory.And to me that is DMing.  Taking everything that the players do, building on it, expanding it, and building round it and dancing so I almost always appear one step ahead.  My players are there to play their characters, not my vision of their characters.  And if ever any game told me to strip the players of their control of the limited aspects of the gameworld they actually do control (i.e. their characters) I would put it back as being not fit for purpose.  I control 99% of the game world.  Why would I need to take the last 1% away from the players?* Influenced by any considerations within the fiction, of course.</blockquote>

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