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<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8607265" data-attributes="member: 16814">Who had the authority to say, though?&nbsp; Did you, as GM, retain the ability to say no?&nbsp; If so, then you loaned out your authority to the player for this choice, and chose not to take it back.&nbsp; This isn't the same things as the player having the authority and the GM having to abide by it.Not that I think what is described here is bad or wrong or there was a better way.&nbsp; It is what it is, and in D&amp;D, the GM is expected to retain this kind of authority.&nbsp; This looks like an example of good play in that structure.&nbsp; I think there's a lot of heat because you feel like your play or choice is being attacked (and I see how you get that) but, for me, that's not it at all.&nbsp; What the point here is to point out the structure of authority and discuss that -- who has it when?&nbsp; In D&amp;D, the GM has it all the time outside of player action declarations for their PC and saying what a PC thinks (although even this is removed sometimes).&nbsp; So, when you give the players the opportunity to pick something in this regime, there's always the veto power of the GM there as the actual authority.&nbsp; Not using it doesn't mean it's not there.There are other structures where players have authorities over more than their PCs; where the GM is constrained by player declarations in ways that would be quite foreign to someone only familiar with D&amp;D and games that structure their authorities like D&amp;D (BRP, CoC, WoD, etc).&nbsp; There are other ways, and they do work.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 8607265, member: 16814"] Who had the authority to say, though? Did you, as GM, retain the ability to say no? If so, then you loaned out your authority to the player for this choice, and chose not to take it back. This isn't the same things as the player having the authority and the GM having to abide by it. Not that I think what is described here is bad or wrong or there was a better way. It is what it is, and in D&D, the GM is expected to retain this kind of authority. This looks like an example of good play in that structure. I think there's a lot of heat because you feel like your play or choice is being attacked (and I see how you get that) but, for me, that's not it at all. What the point here is to point out the structure of authority and discuss that -- who has it when? In D&D, the GM has it all the time outside of player action declarations for their PC and saying what a PC thinks (although even this is removed sometimes). So, when you give the players the opportunity to pick something in this regime, there's always the veto power of the GM there as the actual authority. Not using it doesn't mean it's not there. There are other structures where players have authorities over more than their PCs; where the GM is constrained by player declarations in ways that would be quite foreign to someone only familiar with D&D and games that structure their authorities like D&D (BRP, CoC, WoD, etc). There are other ways, and they do work. [/QUOTE]

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