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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 7930379" data-attributes="member: 53980">That's not my takeaway at all. I'll grant that there was an incompatibility between my revealing the fact and their preferences. However, the group itself was compatible and working great until that point. There was no issue with improvisation per se. Most people grasp on at least some level that a GM needs to improvise at least some of the time.I believe the issue was that once I showed them the illusory nature of that session (which was pretty much entirely improvised), they felt it invalidated all of their choices.Let me put it another way. There are GMs who fudge rolls. However, assuming you were that type of GM, would you honestly tell the player that the only reason their character survived to land the killing blow against the BBEG is because when you rolled a nat 20 against them you declared it a miss? Why would you? All you're doing is invalidating a cool moment they had assumed was earned by pointing out that you handed it to them.Obviously, my situation back then was less cut and dry, but it was (I believe) similar in that sense. Besides, it wasn't as though the players were rude about it. They didn't throw a fit or anything crazy. I could simply tell from their body language that they were unhappy. And they didn't seem to enjoy the campaign as much after that.It was a mismatch of expectations, but one that I could have easily remedied by keeping my mouth shut, had I known at that time that player preferences were a thing. Back then I pretty much just ran the game that I wanted to play in, and since I thought improvisation was awesome, I figured they would too.They didn't punish me, except indirectly and unintentionally. I made a misstep. I never should have revealed to those players what was behind the curtain. Had I told them that some minor NPC was made up on the spot, I think it would have been fine. But revealing to them that the entire world that their characters inhabited (at least for that session) was effectively illusory was too much. Hindsight is 20/20.I honestly don't think the players deserve any blame. They didn't decide anything, except perhaps at a subconscious level. Had I known about player preferences at the time, I could have avoided the issue entirely by not telling them that the session had been improvised.It's like if you buy a carton of delicious chocolate fudge ice cream. Then, when you rip off the lid, you realize that it's actually vanilla with chocolate sprinkles. Assuming that you wanted chocolate and not vanilla, you're going to be understandably disappointed. You might eat some anyway, but it's not unlikely that the carton is going to sit unfinished in the back of your freezer until you end up tossing it. You aren't punishing the ice cream. You thought it was a flavor you enjoyed when you bought it, but it turned out to not be what you thought it was. (Obviously, for the analogy to fully work for my situation, I would need to be a powerful illusionist who was able to ensorcel the vanilla chocolate sprinkle into looking and tasting like chocolate fudge, but I think you get the idea.)The DM mailing it in might make for an unfun session, but I don't see how it makes more work for the DM. If anything, that's a great way to reduce the DM's workload (provided you don't actually care whether the table enjoys themselves).Your approach is different from the one Hussar pitched. Unless I misunderstood something, the original idea was like the illusionist from the prince framing scenario. Essentially telling the player something to the effect of, "The prince is being framed, so I'd like you to stat me up the 7th level illusionist behind that plot".Your approach I can totally get behind. I agree that it doesn't save the DM work, but I can see the player investment being worth it. I would totally allow that IMC (and I actually ask for that sort of thing in their backgrounds). In this case you're not asking them to stat up some random NPC who may or may not play a pivotal role in the scenario. You're asking them to give you NPCs with whom their characters have a pre-existing relationship. It'll take some work to digest and incorporate, but in this case the player has no need to separate their character knowledge from their player knowledge, because their character knows the NPC.I don't even have a problem fundamentally with doing things the way Hussar proposed, I'm just saying it's not a good fit for my group, and that I'm unconvinced that it would appreciably reduce the DM's workload.</blockquote>

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