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="pemerton" data-source="post: 9618035" data-attributes="member: 42582">You didn't actually list anything, though.What you said is that the GM will know Jackson's personality and motivation, and thus has determined what Jackson would do. Of course someone can decide something about what a character might do, that is consistent with that person's personality and motivation, that is very different from there being a unique or even narrowly-constrained possibility as to what that character might do, given some mentioned personality and motivation.You also said that the MG will presumably know what means are available to Jackson and thus will be able to make further inferences. What is the basis for this presumption? I've read a lot of RPG materials over the past 40-odd years. I've prepared a lot of them, too. Just considering, say, the material found in the City of Greyhawk boxed set, it doesn't tell me whether most NPCs have the means, knowledge etc to hire an assassin of such-and-such quality. That's before we get to the question of what quality means in the context of trying to ambush someone protected by an Alarm spell - which depends heavily on things like Perception. In many RPG rules, an assassin of a given level or points-build may be quite variable in their perception skill.Finally, you also say that the GM will presumably know what other plates Jackson has spinning around. Most material I'm familiar with doesn't tell me how many children most NPCs have, let alone how to determine whether one of those children has an upcoming wedding or birthday which might consume the attention of the NPC. And that's just one of a million "spinning plates" that Jackson might be dealing with.All I can see that you're really pointing to is that a GM can make decisions about what a NPC might do, and in making that decision might have regard to some of the relevant in-fiction factors.And what benefit flows from those choices? And what trade-offs are involved? And did any of it ever matter, if the GM has decided that because of his son's upcoming wedding Jackson is too busy to send an assassin after the players' characters?Yes, if the players are happy to go along with what the GM says, then - by definition - they will be happy to go along with what the GM says.This doesn't tell us anything about [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER]'s point, though, which is that this does not robustly support challenge-oriented ("gamist") play.</blockquote>

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