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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bastoche" data-source="post: 2754507" data-attributes="member: 306">No need to aim low thank you. Am I allowed to insult you now? I had the feeling you were arguing my proposed "style" could not exists and that's what I was disagreeing over. You entirely missed my point. Reread my whole paragraph or move on. That being said, no it's NOT the whole point. There is some players out there for whom influencing NPCs is irrelevant to their RPGing experience. Dungeon crawl does not focus on "influencing NPCs". It's and active/passive thing. You get in the room where there's monster, you kill them take the treasure. That's the active side. You DON'T get in the room, the monsters remains there and nothing ever happen to them. It's the passive point. An active/active example would involve giving a purpose to these monsters and it moves a zillion miles away from simple dungeon crawl. Such an example might be that the monsters are trying to move out of the room inside the room where the PCs are. If the PCs do not want to fight them for any reason, they would face the challenge of blocking the door (for example) or escaping.What distinguish a style from another is where the focus is. For some the focus is on the stats on the sheet and that's a perfectly fine way to play if everyone around the table plays that way. For others, it's the acheivement. For others it's taking up challenge ("Charge!") for others it's to play a game that represent an alternate reality with an as high accuracy, etc. There's some aspect that can be mixed and others that cannot. And depending on the mix of players (including the DM) you have, it may or may not work.Unless the "DM's plot" is to sorta cheat the players (that is create a plot using his DM's knowledge (of the PC, environement, etc) to give an edge over the PC), I beleive there is no differences between a plotting DM and his plotting NPCs. It's actually the same "mind" plotting here.Perfect example. In you example, the life is *already there*. If the PCs did not exists, the imagined world would still go 'round. What I'm suggesting here is that another way to prepare, is to prepare for the PC only. Not because of some "external" (to the PCs) "internal" (to the game world) consistency. In what I'm suggesting, the encounters do not exists because they do but rather because they WILL be thrown at the face of the PC to create opportunities for them to make choices (rather than find a obstacle). The challenge (if any, at that point "challenge" becomes optionnal) will occur after the choice. An example might be the following:Suppose that in your example, the PC's familly wronged the other and that's the very reason why the other is on their toe. They're not trying to "gain control", they're trying to "regain control". The choice would occur when the PC finds out (and he will that's the whole point). He could choose the family cause or the righteous cause. It's and active/active choice. It's not a "avoid conscequences/face conscequences". See what I mean? The DM creates the plot because it will come to the PC's ears. Not because it might. It's open ended because the player has all the latitude to decide for himself which is the right cause and which is the wrong. Instead of "you turned the challenge down (or up) now face the conscequences"</blockquote>

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