NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7058209" data-attributes="member: 29398">Again not sure I'll have time to hit all of this, but I can make a start...More on this below I hope, but my point here is that in the real world the answer should have been authored beforehand.  That's what the DM is for.Perhaps - but there's still a mystery involved, even in (in this example) rather superficial.No, it's a player reacting in character (Robilar) to the fiction that's already in place (there's 12 deities down there and I'm bustin' 'em out).The characters are doing what they can to influence said arcs.  Sometimes they'll succeed, sometimes they'll fail, and the arcs will roll on taking whatever they've done into account.  Kinda like the real world. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I very rarely use a published module's backstory, but I almost always have a backstory of my own to replace it with.Yet without doing so how can you inform yourself what's going on in the town and by extension what filters any interactions with the townsfolk may have?I'm not saying by any means that the DM needs to work out every little thing - life's too short for that.  But a bit of logical continuity (and maybe some dice rolling) isn't much of a stretch.I'll get to this later, no time now. Which tells me, when read literally, that you can't have a situation where what the players think of as a great achievement is in fact a monumental screw-up.  They help overthrow the Duke and put a new one on the throne...great achievement, they've been working on it for years!  The new Duke by your words cannot then turn out to be a far worse choice than the old one, learned by the PCs a year later when they pass back through town, as this would "contradict [their] achievements".  Bah.Same response as above re what looks like a win not always being one.  Only I don't call it (or derogatize it as) railroading, nor see it as such.Vampire =/= evil.  Third time I've said this.If the players can share in the fiction (and thus its narration), then what's to stop it?The Baron's an NPC.  The DM runs the NPCs.  Thus, if the Baron did something then by extension I as DM did it.Seems kind of obvious, really. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Why is it helpful to distinguish the player from the PC when talking about in-character or in-game-world stuff where the difference should be as little as possible.OK, so no previous interaction.  All is good.As is evidenced by your noting there weren't any prior interactions.So.  What if there had been?Where for significant NPCs I want their personality and relevant backstory pretty much nailed down ahead of time as those things will (and must) be a filter on whatever interactions that NPC has with the PCs along the way.Or mystery, it seems...but I'll have to get back to this later.Lan-"lunchtime!"-efan</blockquote>

Verification