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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 7091723" data-attributes="member: 6785785">Sure, I understand that. I mean, I said as much in the post you quoted....that's how I tend to handle things when I introduce them into my game. I have an idea, but I'm not married to it. Yeah, I'm fully aware of this, and as I said, this is generally how I handle my games. Do you consider this some sense of illusionism, though? If I understand that term as it's been used in this thread, it mostly relates to the illusion of choice or of consequence of choice being used by the GM. Does this flexibility with the true origin of a story element....let's use the yellow skulker as the example....kind of fall into that same category? No, you have not used the word thwart....but every example you've provided has been one where the GM thwarts the PCs' ideas. The secret door example you just provided is the first benign example of this that I've seen you use. It's very possible that I've missed such an example if you have provided one...but from what I've read, it seems that your examples display a bit of a bias toward how you view it. Which is not wrong or bad by any means.....it just seems a bit obvious even if you don't come right out and say it. And I know you didn't term it as bad, but I meant that I am not as averse to it as you because I think it can be a legit method at times. So I don't find it bad in that sense. But it is. It's just that the player interests and concerns are far less constraining. They don't have aspirations beyond those of the adventure path in question, or if they do, they are easily reconciled with and incorporated into the AP. In the case where players may have much more involved expectations for their PCs and so on, then it would be a concern. In that case, it would be far more difficult for a GM to run a traditional AP as presented without significant changes. My point though is that this criteria that you described doesn't seem to actually bar the AP style traditional GM driven game, depending on the players' desires and expectations. So as such, it doesn't seem to be a criteria for a player driven game. Well, you've kind of narrowed this down to "the players hooking the GM with PC stats or game mechanics", but that need not be the case, and was certainly not what I had in mind. Regardless of PC creation methods, or statistics, the player can say to the GM "I kind of want this character to be haunted by his past...he's done some things he's ashamed of, and is working toward some kind of redemption, but he's not sure that's even possible at this point." That's an idea that a GM can take in so many directions. My current game has a PC with that very backstory involved. As a result, I created a mercenary company he had been a member of, and an entire group of supporting NPCs that he has a past with, and an NPC villain that usurped the mercenary company. I then figured out a way to tie this group into some of the other stories that have been established. All of this helps to constantly bring up elements of the group's past actions, and therefore the PC's past, in the current game. So he is constantly being reminded of his dark past and having to deal with that. It's a major part of our game, and it was entirely inspired by the player having an idea for his PC. He had the initial idea, and then I came up with some details and shared them with him, and we kind of tweaked them till we were both satisfied, and then we incorporated it into the game. Now, I will admit that I did have some elements in mind that I kept from him....I want there to be elements of this story that still need to be discovered. By competition I mean more about conflict between the PCs and the game world more so than the players and the GM, although the GM does have to adopt a certain amount of antagonism toward the PCs when he is playing the villains of the game. I do like things to be difficult for my PCs.But I do also root for them, and I try to make sure that any competition is fair. Or that in the case of something being unfair (for example, an opponent of some sort who is beyond the PCs' ability to actually fight and win) that I give enough information so that the situation is clear, and that there are alternate ways to handle the conflict, and the players can decide how to best proceed. All good ways to deal with PC failure. And I think we pretty much agree on how the GM needs to run opponents of the PCs. I also agree with your note about metagaming in how the situations are established, but then letting the game take over in the resolution of the situation.</blockquote>

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