NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 6088952" data-attributes="member: 7006">Technically... the only "Reject" option is not to say anything.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  The party walks down a dungeon corridor, the DM says it branches left and right, and none of the players say a darn thing and just stare at the DM in silent apathy.  But unless everyone at the table has been chained there to play against their will... I suspect you'll never have a situation where every single player will remain quiet.  But you know what?  Even if they do... then the DM just takes the next step... which is Offer and Accept with himself!He tells the players it branches left and right, no one says anything... so he makes another Offer to detail his original left/right offer.  The left hand corridor you hear sounds of water dripping... the right hand corridor goes off into darkness, and there's a smell of death.  Ball's now in the player's court.  But if they STILL refuse to Accept the situation as the DM has detailed it and sit there silently staring at him... then the DM Offers again.  From the right hand corridor, the smell of death is the result of a pack of zombies that shuffle out of the darkness to attack the party.  And voila!  Once again, this "unimportant" scene has now become important because it's a wandering monster attack.As far as one player making more decisions than other players and being more aggressive, absolutely it can be a problem over time.  But at the same time... the "social contract" of improvisation is that you do actively participate in scenes you are in.  If a player "sits out" an inordinate amount of scenes... it's up to the DM to figure out whether it's because the player doesn't WANT to be that active (many players just enjoy being "along for the ride" most of the time) or if they don't feel EMPOWERED to make Offers to scenes.  If it's the latter... it's really up to that player's "scene partner" (IE the DM) to really Accept and Offer back HARD when that player DOES make an Offer.  That way the player sees that what he is Offering to the scene and the game has just as much weight as anyone else's.This of course warrants a DM who tends to be stronger in improvisation, so that ANYTHING a player says can be construed as an Offer, the DM can Accept it, and then build on it.  As mentioned above... if this silent player says that he/she's buying a oddly large supply of rope... that in itself is an Offer.  The DM should Accept that the player wanted that much rope for a reason (even if the player didn't intend for it to be actually useful and perhaps did it just because it was funny for him/her at the time), file that info away, and make sure to Offer up a detail later on wherein that supply of rope BECOMES important.In the best scenes of improvisation... NO detail is unimportant.  Everything that gets Offered by the participants will find a way to get used at some point during the scene (or in long-form improvisation, used in a future scene as a call-back to the original Offer).  Even the most seeming inconsequential detail someone makes (either intentionally or unintentionally) can get grabbed by the other player and inspire him to turn it into something important.  And that could spiral the adventure in a different direction, especially in terms of PFA.  If the DM didn't have the dungeon entirely planned out, that Offer made of a huge supply of rope in enough to make the DM Offer later on the of the large cavern wherein the rope becomes a necessity.And what's great about that, is that it empowers the quieter player.  They see that their details have consequences.  Nothing is forgotten.  And thus they will be more inspired to make additional Offers later on, gaining confidence that the DM will take what they give and make use of it.  Which is really all you want as a player.  To know that what you are Offering is being heard and being used.</blockquote>

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