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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Imaro" data-source="post: 5723993" data-attributes="member: 48965">Established with who? In a game that is run in a more traditional manner, things can certainly be established in the world that the PC's do not know about yet.   So when you say "established" you really mean "established with/by the players". Now if I as DM have already decided that the villain has taken the shortest route... then why should a PC who is looking for a shorter route succeed? That particular avenue is not viable at this point (I don't see how this is any different than deciding a NPC doesn't respond well to intimidation??)... If I as DM have taken the time to establish this in my notes, on a map or whatever... I would assume it is important to the narrative thus why should it suddenly change? Especially if there are other avenues in which to overcome this particular challenge. Why is a story where they find a shorter route... better than a mad dash through a crowded street using footwork (athletics and/or acrobatics), quick wits and keen eyes(insight and/or perception), while not alerting unddue attention (stealth and/or streetwise) to slowly gain on the villain? My other question is what is the limit? I mean does the DM try his hardest to accomodate each and every idea that someone comes up with to change the narrative as long as it isn't contradicting an established fact? Does the DM only get narrative control when the PC's don't want it? What if two PC's want the narrative to go in a different direction...who wins out?    See my problems isn't in the giving of narrative control to players, however in a game where there is no structure set up to account for it (in other words, something to make it a limited resource) it becomes what I would call the "uber power". You see in essence this is the solve anything by creating a counter spell...spell. And I hate to say this but even strongly narrative games realize that given the opportunity, most players do want things to go their way and if they can will always make it so. That's why games like FATE have compels... where the PC's have to go into incovenient/dangerous/etc. situations in order to replenish the narrartive control pool... because even these games recognize there has to be a limiter on narrative control of the game so it doesn't become too easy and that the easisest answer doesn't always make the best game or story.    Everyone's defintion of a "good game" is not the same. I think in general it is harder for many players (though by no means all) to see an all-encompassing version of a "good game" because they are in essence driving the desires, goals, etc. of a particular character in said story... thus why most heavily narrative games have a balancer of some sort or the other. The thing is sooner or later, with that many people, some narrative drives are eventually going to come into conflict with each other and, unlike most games meant to be played in a shared narrative space, D&D has no determiner for whose narrative should supercede every one else's.</blockquote>

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