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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bill Zebub" data-source="post: 9549738" data-attributes="member: 7031982">Absolutely.But that does not mean that every time their mental model is different from what others expect it is "out of touch with reality".  The interesting and important cases are not where the player wants their character to not believe in something as concrete as a door, but when they want their character to (for example) disagree that an NPC was persuasive.  For a GM to declare that a door exists does not require any buy-in from the PC.  The door's existence is completely independent of the PC's mental state.But for a GM to state "you find the NPC persuasive" with the same certainty as "there is a door" requires the DM to not just establish what their NPC does, but also how the PC reacts to it, which depends to a large extent on their existing internal state.So your claim that the PCs internal mental state is just another feature of the setting is only true if the GM's purview also covers that PCs brain.  And that's the foundation of my stance: that the PCs brain is the one and only thing that belongs exclusively to the player.  So, no, the GM may not dictate how their NPCs persuasiveness is received.  (Not that I'm 'right'; I'm saying that's how I want my RPGs designed.)</blockquote>