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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 7636317" data-attributes="member: 177">Broadly, that would depend upon what other parts of the fiction have already been determined.  Sometimes what the players ask for can become THE solution, and sometimes that would not be consistent with things already set in place.  I am often for not determining details unless/until you need them, specifically so you can flex for such things, but even if you only set any given detail at the moment it comes up, you eventually have a canon in which the past restricts what will plausibly reach the player's desired end.  So, like, you want to incriminate the Duke.  You look for evidence of crooked finances.  You have forgotten that we have already determined that the Exchequer is in the Duke's pocket.  You can find the evidence of crooked finances, but they will not effectively incriminate the Duke!  That's a success on a very specific task, but a failure on the general intent.  Yes.  And pemerton *asked* why a GM should have a bit of latitude in narrating results.  I am giving one class of reason - because sometimes what the player asks for, and what the player wants to achieve, are not well-aligned.   I mean, if you have been working with engineering requests, you should understand the point of over-specifying:  "I want a thing that accomplishes X, and I want that thing to be precisely Y," is a requirement that is often very difficult to fulfill.  If we aren't in antagonistic stance between player and GM, then the GM is there in large part to help the player realize their cool stuff.  Over-specifying limits the GM's ability to help.  Just as a customer is often well-served to allow an engineer or UX designer to figure out *how* a goal is reached, a player is often well-served to allow the GM to guide the specifics a bit.</blockquote>

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