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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7086032" data-attributes="member: 42582">When I say that I don't like "GM's secret backstory", I've been talking about the use of such secret backstory as a consideration in action resolution. I think there was quite an extended discussion of this upthread,wih [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION].An example (hypothetical only) of secret backstory operating as a consdieration in action resolution: the PCs try to out the advisor in a way that will damage his relationship with the baron, but fail because - unbeknownst to the players - the GM has decided that the advisor is holding the baron's niece hostage, and is thereby exercising leverage over the baron.I think that sort of approach is fairly common in RPGing - judging from some posters in this thread, plus other threads that I have read over the years, plus reading published adventures. In this sort of game, the players tend to end up trying to unravel the mystery. [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION], upthread, has talked about a style of play that involves "finding the plot". I think it sits in the same general category as what I have just described, although I'm sure there are significant nuances across individual games and styles.As those posts upthread discussed, it is possible to have mystery and revelation without having secret backstory operate as a constraint on action resolution. I've given at least four examples in the course of this thread:(1) A PC searches in the ruins of the tower which once was his home, hoping to find the nickel-silver mace he had been working upon when orcs attacked; instead, he finds - in the ruins of his brother's private workroom - cursed black arrows, seemingly manufactured by his brother. Later, he learns that the mace was taken from the ruin by a renegade elf. GM commentary: The discovery of the arrows rather than the mace is a consequence of failure. The possession of the mace by the elf is an element of framing, weaving together two hitherto-distinct elememts in the shared fiction. (2) The PCs spend 18 months eking out a living in the ruined tower in the Abor-Alz. Their only significant contact with the ouside world over that time is with some elven merchants who are passing through the hills travelling to distant lands. They report that the Gynarch of Hardby has announced her engagement to the head of a sorcerous cabal, who - as it happens - is also a nemesis of the PCs. The PCs wonder whether the Gynarch is under his magical influence. GM commentary: The encounter with the merchants was the result of a successful Circles check by the player of the elven princess. The wedding gossip was (initially) colour, which has subsequently transmuted into an element of framing. What the utlimate reason for, and significance of, the engagement is has not yet been discovered. (3) The baron's niece has not been seen for some days. The PCs, fearing that her fiance - the evil necromancer advisor of the baron - has done something to hurt her. They track her down to an enchanted tower in the moors (the Bloodmoors Tower from Open Grave). They enter the tower, planning to rescue her - only to discover that she herself is a Vecna-ite necromancer, trying to bring an ancient member of her order back to (un)life, and in the process instead waking Kas from a long slumber. GM commentary: This was all framing. The missing niece, and her connection to her ancestor whom the PCs had helped when they travelled back in time, was initially part of the dinner skill challenge, and then became part of the framing of this subsequent episode. (4) The PCs defend a homestead against goblin attackers. They learn (i) that the homestead contains a magical tapestry, and (ii) that the goblins are searching for it. (How they learn those things now escapes me, as it was many years of play ago; my best guess would be talking to NPCs.) When approaching a goblin fortress, they see a wizardly type wearing a yellow robe fly off on a flying carpet. They have heard other stories of a wizardly type in yellow robes hanging out suspiciously in the local area. In a tunnel beneath the fortress they find a torn scrap of yellow robe in a place that (they work out somehow - again, I can't remember the details) the tapestry had once hung. Somehow (perhaps a scrying spell of some sort?) they learn that the yellow-robed wizard was driven out by the gelatinous cubes which they just defeated. GM commentary: This begins as colour: the goblins need a motivation for attacking the homestead, and the presence of the tapestry provides it. The presence of a yellow-robed mastermind zooming around on a flying carpet adds to the colour. The colour becomes part of the framing of the skill challenge, however: the PCs play on it in the course of making skill checks (eg obliquely taunting the advisor about his defeat by the cubes, by boasting how easily they - the PCs - were able to defeat said cubes; and then taunting him about his torn robe).There is no secret backstory as an element of action resolution in any of the above. The resolution follows from the framing and the checks.</blockquote>

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