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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 7924980" data-attributes="member: 6696971">[USER=16814]@Ovinomancer[/USER]Here is a good example I just thought of where I feel comfortable calling it Force when a GM creates metaplot/backstory that subordinates a player’s authority over their thematic conception of their PC/interests.4e has 3 ways of earning xp:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Passing or failing Skill Challenges (a story loss/setback or a story win...it doesn't matter).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Defeating Monsters</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Quests</li> </ul>Now as of DMG2 (came out 9 months after release), these Quests are either authored entirely by a player or co-authored with the GM.Their functionality is basically the exact same as Bonds and Alignment in Dungeon World.   You make a statement about your PC and pursue it to resolution.  Say you're a Sohei.  You might have the following Quest:"The Daimyo has the blood of my priesthood on his hands, even though he used surrogates to do the killing.  They will be avenged when my blade finds his neck."The essential system components/game agenda here are/is:1)  Explicitly staking out and then aggressively advocating for your thematic portfolio is fundamental to the play of 4e D&D.  And its fundamentally the player's purview.2)  A GM has narration rights of situation-framing and story setback loss/complication.  But there are limits. Those limits are (a) that initial situation-framing must honor (1) above along with what has come before it in the on-screen fiction and (b) the thematically-challenging material they place in front of the player must (c) be onscreen such that the player is aware of it and the stakes involved and (d) must only be the fallout of a story loss (A Skill Challenge failure or a Combat where the objective was failed).So, back to the Sohei and the Daimyo.  In this case, if the GM used his unique access to the offscreen/backstory to do something like (a) anticlimactically kill the Daimyo offscreen or (b) unilaterally (and retroactively) change the nature of the Daimyo's role so that he doesn't have blood on his hands, and either of these aren't an outgrowth of 2b>c>d above, that would have to be "Force by way of offscreen backstory/metaplot reframing of a PC's thematic portfolio (which is the player's input)."[HR][/HR]Hopefully it makes sense why my take is that [USER=6688277]@Sadras[/USER] 's situation in 5e is different than something like Quests and 4e.  Now [USER=6688277]@Sadras[/USER] 's table social contract or hack the above into his 5e game...but its not there at an elemental level, so I can only go by 5e's GMing role, the game's play priorities and authority distribution, and the general system/PC build stuff.</blockquote>

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