Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 9001155" data-attributes="member: 82106">I think it points out that it makes sense to have setting transparency with players. For example, Doskvol, the city where Blades in the Dark is set, is entirely known to the players. We even know as much about the whole world as the GM. The description says there are, IIRC 4 islands. As part of my character's background I described him as coming from another heretofore undescribed, but now lost, island. I know, because I have read all the setting material, that this doesn't clash in any major way with how the setting works, etc. My character was, effectively, an orphan since Shimayama no longer existed, but that was cool, our headquarters was an orphanage! And one of the other characters was definitely from a powerful family (but foreigners). The other two were, I think a bit less defined at the start, though one turned out to have once had a fairly well-off family too (their estate factored into his story). The fourth one was more of a mystery in that department. None of it made anyone less equal.I might once have thought like this, but in the last 15-20 years I've run stuff that is just MUCH less formula. If one PC has a way to get some resource, its going to contribute to the group, or else maybe if it doesn't that too could be its own story! I mean, like games with progression, and I certainly enjoyed the balanced effectiveness of 4e PCs, but it would have to be a specific sort of game for just basic material wealth or 'contacts' or such to be that central that it would make a huge difference if one character had access to a pile of gold or whatever. I don't see players in the light of people that can 'abuse' something. They're spinning stories, and I'm as much stagehand as anything else. I'll help smooth over some sort of issue that 2 players have with each other, or if I really find someone's play to be offputting to me I'd tell them, but I'm not the boss of anyone. There's nothing to abuse or get advantage over. I agree that it is potentially feasible to find that one out of a group of players is an uncooperative jerk who will sabotage play, but I don't think taking away their pile of gold is going to fix that.</blockquote>

Verification