Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Realistic Consequences vs Gameplay
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="prabe" data-source="post: 8006217" data-attributes="member: 7016699"><p>And (calling back to what others have said about the published adventure) to what extent the PCs knew going in that he was a villain (which I'm taking to mean someone the PCs are expected by the writer/s to at least want to take down). Defeating a villain by talking with him is ... atypical for D&D (though not strictly impossible).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Since the DM in 5E has specific authority to determine when an outcome is in doubt, I'd say the DM's mental image serves as a pretty firm constraint on the shared fiction. Sure, there are other systems where the GM has less authority in that regard, but the OP isn't playing any of those (I don't think) so I'm not sure they're super-relevant..</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>So, responding to things here, not in the order you pose them.</p><p></p><p>I guess I need an example of what you mean in the italicized phrases. The world of the game is more than what the players or characters know. I know my homebrew setting has secrets the players don't know about--far as I know, they don't even know the questions; some of those might at some point effect play, and I suppose it's possible a player might object to [newly-established fact that hasn't been contradicted in play]--is that the sort of thing you mean?</p><p></p><p>Not all the GM's playtime happens at the table. I'd argue that if the GM is doing prep work, that's a form of play, and anything the GM has prepped has emerged in play. Reading a published adventure before running it is a form of prep--and any descriptions therein I'd be inclined to consider pretty well-fixed, in the sense that I consider fiction to have both objective (what happens) and subjective (what the characters experience) levels. If the GM in the process of making the game-world decides that the world itself is gradually awakening to consciousness, that seems like a fact of the world--and it might serve as a constraint on (or instigator of) what happens in a campaign, even if the players or characters never know it (and for all I know the players might find it aesthetically repugnant).</p><p></p><p>As to a specific NPC and that NPC's reactions ... If the GM has prepped that NPC as having certain attitudes or certain likely behaviors, it seems to me as though that's probably where the NPC starts and what the NPC probably does. If the NPC has (in Fate-speak) Aspect-like characteristics (Trait, Bond, Flaw in 5E), those are on the NPC's character sheet--they're part of the character, which has a sort of objective existence in the setting. Maybe it's possible for the PCs to find out about those characteristics--either through experiencing the setting or through a social encounter with the NPC (Fate has a mechanic to learn an NPC's aspects; I think 5E allows WIS(Insight) to learn Traits/Bonds/Flaws). If they don't learn about them, though, they still exist, and they'll still shape the NPC's behavior.</p><p></p><p>When I talk about "suspension of disbelief" (or specifically when I mentioned things happening to break mine, as a GM), I was talking about having the world not be consistent. Part of the reason I strongly prefer to run games where the players/PCs don't have authority to (re-)write the world is because I find that having so many authorial viewpoints leads to an inconsistent world (and to my suspension of disbelief collapsing). It's not a radically different experience from reading a novel where the world is inconsistent. Or writing such a novel: my experience from when I was trying to write fiction was that if I couldn't suspend disbelief in the story I was writing, I couldn't write it, and I think my feelings about GMing in this regard are consistent with (and probably shaped by) that.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>If the GM has the NPC's character sheet (or statblock, or whatever the game calls it) it seems to me that the GM self-evidently does know the NPC better than the players. There are of course game systems that let the players edit NPCs' character sheets (or other parts of the world), but what they don't edit the GM still knows--and if the players don't find that out somehow, they don't know it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="prabe, post: 8006217, member: 7016699"] And (calling back to what others have said about the published adventure) to what extent the PCs knew going in that he was a villain (which I'm taking to mean someone the PCs are expected by the writer/s to at least want to take down). Defeating a villain by talking with him is ... atypical for D&D (though not strictly impossible). Since the DM in 5E has specific authority to determine when an outcome is in doubt, I'd say the DM's mental image serves as a pretty firm constraint on the shared fiction. Sure, there are other systems where the GM has less authority in that regard, but the OP isn't playing any of those (I don't think) so I'm not sure they're super-relevant.. So, responding to things here, not in the order you pose them. I guess I need an example of what you mean in the italicized phrases. The world of the game is more than what the players or characters know. I know my homebrew setting has secrets the players don't know about--far as I know, they don't even know the questions; some of those might at some point effect play, and I suppose it's possible a player might object to [newly-established fact that hasn't been contradicted in play]--is that the sort of thing you mean? Not all the GM's playtime happens at the table. I'd argue that if the GM is doing prep work, that's a form of play, and anything the GM has prepped has emerged in play. Reading a published adventure before running it is a form of prep--and any descriptions therein I'd be inclined to consider pretty well-fixed, in the sense that I consider fiction to have both objective (what happens) and subjective (what the characters experience) levels. If the GM in the process of making the game-world decides that the world itself is gradually awakening to consciousness, that seems like a fact of the world--and it might serve as a constraint on (or instigator of) what happens in a campaign, even if the players or characters never know it (and for all I know the players might find it aesthetically repugnant). As to a specific NPC and that NPC's reactions ... If the GM has prepped that NPC as having certain attitudes or certain likely behaviors, it seems to me as though that's probably where the NPC starts and what the NPC probably does. If the NPC has (in Fate-speak) Aspect-like characteristics (Trait, Bond, Flaw in 5E), those are on the NPC's character sheet--they're part of the character, which has a sort of objective existence in the setting. Maybe it's possible for the PCs to find out about those characteristics--either through experiencing the setting or through a social encounter with the NPC (Fate has a mechanic to learn an NPC's aspects; I think 5E allows WIS(Insight) to learn Traits/Bonds/Flaws). If they don't learn about them, though, they still exist, and they'll still shape the NPC's behavior. When I talk about "suspension of disbelief" (or specifically when I mentioned things happening to break mine, as a GM), I was talking about having the world not be consistent. Part of the reason I strongly prefer to run games where the players/PCs don't have authority to (re-)write the world is because I find that having so many authorial viewpoints leads to an inconsistent world (and to my suspension of disbelief collapsing). It's not a radically different experience from reading a novel where the world is inconsistent. Or writing such a novel: my experience from when I was trying to write fiction was that if I couldn't suspend disbelief in the story I was writing, I couldn't write it, and I think my feelings about GMing in this regard are consistent with (and probably shaped by) that. If the GM has the NPC's character sheet (or statblock, or whatever the game calls it) it seems to me that the GM self-evidently does know the NPC better than the players. There are of course game systems that let the players edit NPCs' character sheets (or other parts of the world), but what they don't edit the GM still knows--and if the players don't find that out somehow, they don't know it. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Realistic Consequences vs Gameplay
Top