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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Maxperson" data-source="post: 7088083" data-attributes="member: 23751">I don't think he meant that it was not subject to unilateral determination by the DM.  He says the bolded as well."I think there is some room for fiction unknown to players to impact resolution. I do not like characterizing some fiction as backstory and other fiction as fiction. It's all fiction to me regardless of when it happened. However, it must be meaningfully knowable through skilled play of the fiction and mechanisms provided before it impacts resolution."To me that says that the DM can in fact unilaterally determine the result through fiction unknown to the players.  I do agree that the key to that is the phrase "meaningfully knowable.".  He goes on to describe achieving that knowledge as through skilled play and mechanisms.  What I think he means is something along the lines of the following.  Perhaps the evil(alignment unknown) local lord is going to have a statue smashing contest in 3 days. While in town the PCs hear about villagers going missing.  If they investigate(skilled play of the fiction), they will likely come across a man who reports seeing a woman in the woods who he saw fro behind while hiding in a hunting blind.  She turned a wolf he was about to kill into a stone statue and left it there in the woods when she left.  That skilled play would lead to the reveal of a medusa, which when put together with the missing villagers and the statue contest would let the PCs know that the statues were likely the missing villagers(hidden back story).  One of the PCs loves art and looks at the statues on the day of the contest to see if he can determine the artist and rolls quite high.  The DM tells him he failed(there's hidden back story) if they did not bother to investigate.  In the above example, if I'm understanding [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] correctly, he would be okay with that unilateral determination, because there was ample opportunity for the players to discover that backstory prior to the check.</blockquote>

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