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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 7557265" data-attributes="member: 85555"><p>I acknowledged that play can devolve to a mother may I like situation. I think the OPs point was much more sound in that respect than many of pemerton's responses. But he is asserting whole styles of play are mother may I (which becomes useless as a term to describe gaming in that case because you are effectively just calling a play style child's play). in my example, i am assuming other things are going on leading up to the decision to go to the Tea House. Obviously these things are not being done in a vacuum, and the players may or may not have good reason to assume the Tea House is a likely spot to find members of Bone Breaking Sect. But the reason I used the example is because what matters is what guide's the GM's decision. He or she isn't answering a question the PCs raised, if that isn't part of the consideration in determining what is there. The players can say "we go to the Inn to see if Donald Trump is there" all they want, but if he doesn't exist in my setting, it doesn't matter that they floated the idea. I think people don't seem to get a lot of groups don't see their declared actions as attempts to insert or float anything in the setting itself. Their simply trying to explore (and yes they may be exploring for a purpose, but they don't assume the GM is giving them something as a result). And this is not at all about pre-plotted ideas. My example comes from an actual campaign, where I ran everything as a drama sandbox, and made most of my decisions based on what I knew of the setting (particularly its geography), what I knew of the sects and groups involved, what I knew about recent developments in the martial world, occasionally using tables and other tools, etc. It would have been fairly easy for me to figure out what is at that Tea House. I am not averse to letting players do something like go into town and roll a Survival (City) Skill to see if they find people they are looking for. But the success or failure isn't going to determine what is in the city, it is going to determine whether they find out if the group is in the city. It is just a style coming from a different perspective than Pemerton assumes, and he is painting it as a caricature to advance a position about play styles. Perhaps my example was imperfect. I deliberately chose one that was meant to superficially seem like what he was talking about. But I don't think it is mother may I at all. It could become mother may I, if all the players do is keep going to places looking for Bone Breaking sect members, and the GM keeps saying no until they find the exact right spot. But I think that is more indicative of a dysfunctional group, where the players and the GM are both not dealing well with the game.</p></blockquote><p></p>

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