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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 7099893" data-attributes="member: 16586">[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]I am speaking only to the expectation that we will all play with integrity and follow the established fiction achieved through fictional positioning and utilizing the rules of the game. I do not expect that other characters will value and build on the things my character has to say. I expect that the other players will value my contributions to the fiction and consider my fictional positioning when making decisions for their characters. This is not something I meaningfully view as different from the expectation that players will not act on knowledge their character would not have.There is also a fundamental difference between blocking and negation for me. While fiction is being established we have every opportunity to block the contribution. This can be done at Intent, Initiation, Execution, or Effect. The game has rules that allow us to block. A saving throw is one way. Once things have been established negating the implied fictional consequences is something I am not a fan of. Another player is free to decide what their character does. It is just an expectation of mine that they will have regard for who my character is, what just happened in the shared fiction, and the rules of the game. Vicious Mockery implies that you have been hurt in someway - so much so that it could kill you. It's words that cut. Failing the saving throw implies that your character has been affected by those words in some way. I expect that to be reflected in play - not just in the marking off of hp. How that happens I do not care - not my decision to make. Similarly, Bardic Inspiration implies actual inspiration - not just a bonus die.This idea that we can meaningfully separate the fiction from the mechanisms and can pick and choose which forms of fictional positioning to pay attention to is something I am no fan of. It completely destroys any sense of skilled play of the fiction or what I believe separates role playing games from board games - as games we play in a shared fiction. I also do not view this as a feature of 5th Edition as written despite my concerns about story advocacy.  My fiction getting all up in your fiction, and your fiction getting all up in your fiction is precisely the point. We are collaborating - not expressing our own individual creativity and precisely controlling the content of the fiction. This is my preferred form of playing a role playing game. It does not have to be anyone else's. The diversity of form we can experience in this hobby is something I value because it allows me to have radically different experiences that I could not easily get to have by only playing one game with a particular set of people. Different games. Different people. Different aims.I would also disagree that in real life we do not place expectations on other people or that they do not place expectations on us. In social endeavors we do things on the basis of the expectations we have for other people. I would not participate in a conversation with someone who does not value my perspective or listen to what I really have to say. I would not go to work if I did not get paid for my labor. I would not open up emotionally to someone if I believed they were going to belittle my concerns. I mean everyone is always free to not meet my expectations or exceed them, and that will have an effect on my behavior going forward. There are social costs and risks involved in everything we do.</blockquote>

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