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<blockquote data-quote="overgeeked" data-source="post: 8478270" data-attributes="member: 86653">I find it counterintuitive that the first recourse is the mechanics. To me, that's backwards. Fiction first, then mechanics (if needed...and they're generally not needed). If some NPC tells my character they saw something incredible that was or should have been clearly visible to dozens of people, I'm going to have my character ask around town. When literally no one else confirms that story, I'll assume the NPC is a liar. Or just have my character look around to see signs that anyone else saw a dragon. Is the entire town in an absolute panic. Well, then it's either a lie or the dragon's friendly. Then I'll wonder why they lied or go to the bar and ask how many drinks that NPC had the night they &quot;saw a dragon&quot;. Just like in real life. If you tell me you saw a spaceship hover over your city center two days ago, I'm going to ask around to see if anyone confirms that. My sense of whether you're being honest or not largely depends on the outrageousness of your claim and how important that fact is to my life going forward. Like if you say you saw Keith Richards doing a line of coke off a hooker's butt, I'll likely say &quot;wow&quot; and go on with my day whether I believe you or not. But the validity of that claim is largely irrelevant to my life going forward. If you say there's an alien spacecraft sucking up people at random I'm going to try to confirm that before I do anything to safeguard myself from the alien menace.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="overgeeked, post: 8478270, member: 86653"] I find it counterintuitive that the first recourse is the mechanics. To me, that's backwards. Fiction first, then mechanics (if needed...and they're generally not needed). If some NPC tells my character they saw something incredible that was or should have been clearly visible to dozens of people, I'm going to have my character ask around town. When literally no one else confirms that story, I'll assume the NPC is a liar. Or just have my character look around to see signs that anyone else saw a dragon. Is the entire town in an absolute panic. Well, then it's either a lie or the dragon's friendly. Then I'll wonder why they lied or go to the bar and ask how many drinks that NPC had the night they "saw a dragon". Just like in real life. If you tell me you saw a spaceship hover over your city center two days ago, I'm going to ask around to see if anyone confirms that. My sense of whether you're being honest or not largely depends on the outrageousness of your claim and how important that fact is to my life going forward. Like if you say you saw Keith Richards doing a line of coke off a hooker's butt, I'll likely say "wow" and go on with my day whether I believe you or not. But the validity of that claim is largely irrelevant to my life going forward. If you say there's an alien spacecraft sucking up people at random I'm going to try to confirm that before I do anything to safeguard myself from the alien menace. [/QUOTE]

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