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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9672958" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Hmm. Perhaps. But that would be yet another unspoken but critically necessary expectation: that the players are basically somehow magically expected to know that they're supposed to treat every environment as something to be questioned deeply and expansively.Which just feeds right back into my frustration about everything being kept tacit and implied and invisible, in the black box, even though a lot of it actually could just be...said. Like straightforwardly, plainly said.A trilemma is a situation where there are, or at least seem to be, only three options--all of them undesirable. C.S. Lewis is famous for his trilemma regarding Jesus (the "liar, lunatic, or Lord" idea--not interested in debating it, just giving it as an example). It's the three-pronged version of a dilemma. The options, whether dilemma or trilemma, are usually referred to casually as "horns", coming from the idea that a "dilemma" means needing to choose which horn the bull gores you with--neither of which is appealing.My (proposed; perhaps one might say "alleged") trilemma, here, is one about how much the GM prompts the players with information:(1) No prompting at all. This leaves the players constantly having to guess what is relevant or useful or more than just set-dressing, hence my reference to the (pejorative) term for needing to hunt down a single-pixel item in classic adventure games (for computers), aka "needle in a haystack" issues(2) Only prompting about things the GM has heavily prepared. Since the things the GM speaks of are, inherently, boosted above things they didn't speak of, this puts a massive bias towards prep and away from unprepped, which looks like loss of agency to me (the "menu of choices")(3) Prompting about a ton of things, whether all prepped or a mix of prepped and unprepped. A zillion different bits of information...liable to either create analysis paralysis (too many options to pick from) or interest fatigue (too many options to cognitively engage with)All three paths seem to lead to a problem, and "don't prompt", "only prompt prepped stuff", "prompt about most things" seems a pretty comprehensive . Thus far, the answer (as hinted via Enrahim's post above) is that character-PoV-centric presentation is key, and that (player?) Q&A is a vital procedure. I don't yet feel that is an answer--but it is a sincere effort to provide one. So, since Enrahim was building off of your post with this thought:(A) How does centering on character PoV help with these issues? Do you have ideas for ways that could address, by itself or with other techniques, the issues above?(B) What would you say are best practices, or important guidelines/rules of thumb, for player Q&A (I assume player questions and GM answers, this is only implied not stated outright) in this context? I ask about best practices etc. because "player Q&A" sounds, to my outsider's ear, like it would very quickly lead to the issue of feeling like you have to find a needle in a haystack every other session.</blockquote>

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