Is "GM Agency" A Thing?

[Hussar]

snip

We would establish how that fits in the world together at the character creation. (Granted, in my current world there is no iron, or knights, as the most advanced societies are still at the early bronze age, but I'm sure we could come up with something analogous that would fulfil the concept.) As with Auxol itself, my settings tend to be big and bread strokes enough that we probably could insert a whole city state, but alternative would be to choose one of the already existing ones that doesn't have much lore about it and use it instead. I assume the exact name of the nation is not what's important here.

Snip.

Now what would you do if the player approached you with this concept after character generation? Or are players only allowed to author setting elements before game starts?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Now what would you do if the player approached you with this concept after character generation? Or are players only allowed to author setting elements before game starts?

Isn't this pretty integral part of the of the character so wouldn't it be weird? I think it is best to do this sort of thing at the beginning, as the stuff is easiest to integrate then, but yes, if needed things could be defined between sessions as well.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Now what would you do if the player approached you with this concept after character generation? Or are players only allowed to author setting elements before game starts?

It depends. After campaign start, the map of at least the nearby campaign area is set, so the country they want to restore is likely far away. Are they intending to drag the party to it in order to "tell their personal story", possibly at the expense of what others want? Are they willing to transplant their story to somewhere in the existing world similar enough for it to work, or does it have to be their way? Major setting elements like the mapped out campaign setting the party is currently in are generally not subject to change after the game starts, and in my view it would be selfish for a player to demand major changes in that area to an active setting to accommodate their personal goals. It really depends on the details and how flexible the player is. Even if they can add details, I still have final say, and I won't apologize for that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Isn't this pretty integral part of the of the character so wouldn't it be weird? I think it is best to do this sort of thing at the beginning, as the stuff is easiest to integrate then, but yes, if needed things could be defined between sessions as well.

I think (please correct me if I'm wrong @Hussar ) They mean a new character dropped into an existing, active setting. My answer is based on that idea. Springing a huge personal quest with the worldbuilding needs this one has in the middle of an active campaign from an existing character without any prior indication reads to me as even more selfish than my original assumption.

 

[Maxperson]

To highlight why this is bad, let's remove the fisking (and a couple of words so the sentences actually work together.

This is my original post:


This is your answer.

See how that suddenly doesn't make a whole lot of sense? It becomes mostly gibberish. And self contradictory as well. "Some caves are empty" but, "there are very few dungeons where I haven't encountered anything". And, that's even further contradicted because, "Anything worthy of the name dungeon has something of interest to the players in it". This is why fisking is bad.

See, caves aren't usually dungeons to me. I view caves as singular or very small systems, like the vast majority of caves are. That was what I was envisioning when I said that, not something like the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.

I can see where you could think that I was being contradictory, though.

 

[Maxperson]

Have you read Gygax's advice in his PHB, under the heading Successful Adventures, and then thought about what must be happening on the GM side for that advice to be of any use at all?

I tend to ignore pretty much all of Gygax's advice. He's contradictory half the time and the other half he doesn't play the game the way that he wrote it, because he wrote it with a specific agenda in mind, not as what he thought the best way to play the game was.

 

[Emberashh]

To highlight why this is bad, let's remove the fisking (and a couple of words so the sentences actually work together.

This is my original post:


This is your answer.

See how that suddenly doesn't make a whole lot of sense? It becomes mostly gibberish. And self contradictory as well. "Some caves are empty" but, "there are very few dungeons where I haven't encountered anything". And, that's even further contradicted because, "Anything worthy of the name dungeon has something of interest to the players in it". This is why fisking is bad.

It isnt a contradiction unless you're trying to force a worldbuilding style that's PC centric; ie, nothing in the world should exist if its not for the PCs direct interaction.

Caves can just be caves. They occur jn nature and one should find them if they go looking or get lost.

This in no way contradicts the idea that a dungeon set into a cave, for whatever reason, should be interesting to explore.

 

[Emberashh]

Ahh. Fisking is when you break down a post bit by bit and then respond to each individual bit. The post you pulled from was very short and you split it up sentence by sentence, responding to each sentence individually which loses context.

You're assuming people aren't responding to you in full just because they choose to not write a wall of text or quote every single word. Context isn't lost or ignored on the altar of concision, and to deny a response based on how it was written (particularly when its for the ease of reading) rather than its content is just, yeesh.

And most people find it easier to read smaller paragraphs, fwiw.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Far from the worst idea I've heard this week...

It’s a terrible idea. Adventure paths aren’t my preferred playstyle at all, but lots of people enjoy them. And I think my experience with them has informed my play and GMing in positive ways.

 

[Aldarc]

You're assuming people aren't responding to you in full just because they choose to not write a wall of text or quote every single word. Context isn't lost or ignored on the altar of concision, and to deny a response based on how it was written (particularly when its for the ease of reading) rather than its content is just, yeesh.

And most people find it easier to read smaller paragraphs, fwiw.

You say it's "yeesh," but I know that I personally won't respond to a wall of quotes or will ask the person who made the response to summarize key points from their post. It's easier to read small paragraphs, but fisking tends to create far more scattered text that is divorced or removed from its original context, which becomes an issue when discussing things in a forum, where it can be difficult to follow the flow of conversations through quotes. This is one reason why fisking is considered poor form in online discussion in particular.

Moreover, it's far more difficult to respond to a whole bunch of selective quotes than a smaller set of quotes, and it tends to lead to even more walls of selective quotes. It's also usually a sign, again IME, that the conversation has broken down. It becomes less of a conversation and more of a line-by-line argument that drifts into tangents about the fine points rather than the whole.