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Message: <blockquote data-quote="robertsconley" data-source="post: 9662872" data-attributes="member: 13383">@BedrockBrendan and I have both explained at length how we arrive at our decisions. I was asked for an actual play account and provided one upthread.<a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/rant-the-conservatism-of-d-d-fans-is-exhausting.712674/post-9661578" target="_blank">The Golden Pass and Yonk's Place</a>I get that [USER=7044566]@thefutilist[/USER]'s question wasn’t exactly the same, so if you have follow-ups, fair enough.And I’ve said multiple times now that a referee in a living world sandbox needs to develop and practice good leadership skills. That includes owning their decisions. If that wasn’t clear, I’m pointing it out again now. I also think it’s fair to assume that a thread with over 7,000 posts makes it easy to miss something even if it’s been said more than once. That’s what reasonable and plausible means in practice, and this is an example of me applying that principle.Yes, I’m deciding, from among plausible outcomes. You also said possible, and I’m careful not to conflate the two. “Possible” includes many outcomes I wouldn’t choose because they don’t make sense for the situation. “Plausible” narrows it down to what fits the logic of the setting. That distinction matters in how I run my games.I was asked a similar question upthread. Again, I point you to the Yonk’s Place example. If you want to dig deeper on any part of it, let me know.What may not be immediately obvious is that most of what Josh described happened through first-person roleplay, me and the players talking in character, evaluating the situation, and then me making a ruling. Not a formal procedure like some games use, but in-character interaction punctuated by judgment calls.Here’s how it went: the group left Gold Keep. I rolled for a random encounter. Got Hill Giants. I looked at my map and saw Yonk’s Place was the nearest known location with Hill Giants. There are four hill giants keyed there, so I rolled a d4 and got Frella. She’s a druid, so I figured it was reasonable and plausible she was out gathering herbs. That’s how the encounter was determined.This is what I mean when I say I use a toolkit of procedures. It’s not one universal method, it’s a collection of tools and judgment calls that I adapt to fit the situation. If the players ever want a full breakdown after the fact, I’ll explain it all.I also shared a similar example from my GURPS campaign.<a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/rant-the-conservatism-of-d-d-fans-is-exhausting.712674/page-609#post-9659454" target="_blank">The Nomar Campaign</a>You can also check out some of my blog posts here:[URL unfurl="true"]https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/p/managing-sandbox-campaign-articles.html[/URL]And two excerpts from my Majestic Fantasy RPG rules:<a href="https://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/When%20to%20make%20a%20Ruling.pdf" target="_blank">When to Make a Ruling</a><a href="https://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/The%20World%20Outside%20of%20the%20Dungeon.pdf" target="_blank">The World Outside of the Dungeon</a>That’s fair, within your framework. In mine, the referee exists to support the core goal of the campaign: to make the players feel like they visited a living, coherent world. That feeling of verisimilitude is what’s prioritized.So yes, the players don’t have much meta-agency—they don’t shape the world as authors. But they do have strong character agency: their ability to change the setting is directly tied to what their character can plausibly accomplish. That’s the tradeoff, and the players know this going in, it’s not hidden or unclear.That said, there is an important form of meta-agency present: players, individually or as a group, are always welcome to talk with me about their overall goals. This helps guide what I prepare for upcoming sessions and ensures that their interests are handled with sufficient detail. If that structure results in the referee being more central from your perspective, I understand. However, in my view, it’s about aligning the referee’s role with the setting-first premise, rather than spotlighting the referee personally.</blockquote>

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