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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 9639038">I agree something about the term GM fiat here feels like it glosses over things (for me personally when I hear the phrase GM fiat, what comes to mind is a rigid GM bringing their hand down on the table and issuing a decree by force of will more than any other thing). But this off screen concern gets a lot of heavy discussion among GMs running the style and tons of tools outside ‘GM decides’ have been developed to help give this the sense of life it needs This is I think a very common thread. I am more open to drama than a lot of sandbox GMs but I am also wary of letting my game succum to a 90s storyteller railroad (i don’t mean vampire specifically but the general storytelling style a lot of modules had in the 90s). So for me this means leaning heavily of tools (for instance things like shake up tables) and focusing on NPC goals. NPCs might have goals that feel pulled out of a dramatic Shaw Brothers movie but I don’t think ‘this would be a dramatic thing to have happen’ I think in terms of ‘this is what Hell Burning Sword is going to try to achieve” (and that goal is going to be subject to relevant rolls—because I personally don’t want to know how any of this is going to turn out, I want to be surprised as well)</blockquote>