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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 8009670" data-attributes="member: 53980">Nothing wrong with different preferences. No offense intended, but I don't recall your post about the giant steading, and I'm not going to dig it up. It sounds though like you had the players invent some of the details for you (akin to how DungeonWorld is meant to be played).Nothing wrong with that. PbA games are great IMO. I actually was a Kickstarter backer for DW. I can definitely see how having your players add details to your world would help to immerse everyone through shared world building. My players however, don't enjoy it in all contexts. They're happy to cooperate if the details pertain to their character. Describing their character's best friend or their favorite tavern in the town they grew up in. They're significantly less keen on sharing the world building when it's something their characters don't have a connection with. That's the sort of thing that they want to discover and explore through their actions and my descriptions. They really enjoy discovery in this particular context.I don't really see it as outcomes of action resolutions. I see it as a description of characteristics that help determine logical outcomes. It's akin to how a door might be made of wood, iron, or elemental ice. A wood door will burn, but it won't rust. Iron will rust, but producing a flame hot enough to melt it would not be easy. Elemental ice might neither burn nor rust, so a different means must be found if one wishes to pass through it.Similarly, a truly honorable guard isn't going to take a bribe regardless of how persuasive you are. However, appeals to his honor will be very effective. Of course, that trait has no bearing on his gullibility (just as an example).Whereas I see it as being similar to jumping off a cliff. Ideally, the character should be aware of the cliff, rather than it being some sort of gotcha while stumbling around in the dark. However, once they do fall, gravity takes over. I see that as a perfectly normal degree of control, and nothing more than perfectly normal event resolution. If the baron's trait is that he has a fragile ego, then he will become angry if insulted. Obviously, that might not apply to all insults. A clever enough phrasing might allow you to make a insult sound like a compliment to him, in which case he'd be pleased rather than angry. However, he doesn't suddenly lose his fragile ego just because the players decided to be rude towards him. I see nothing wrong with that.Why do you have to make friends with the baron? You don't, to the best of my knowledge. I'm fairly certain that CoS doesn't have anything in it that requires befriending the baron. I'm not even aware of a requirement to meet him.The players could have ignored the baron and continued on their adventures. They could have met with him, decided he's insane, and then left and plotted to overthrow him. Instead, a single player decided to provoke the baron while in his seat of power. Even that could have been saved, IMO. The other characters could have salvaged the situation by apologizing on behalf of the rude character, claiming that he's their village idiot but quite capable with a blade, and then telling him to wait outside until the grownups are done talking. Or they could have stood their ground together and probably killed the baron and his troops. Instead, one guy tried to hold the baron hostage and two PCs decided they wanted no part of this. We all know the old adage "never split the party" but they did, despite all being physically present in the same space.I don't see what the DM did as heavy handed. Unless they were trying to react to the scenario and the DM wouldn't let them, but that doesn't sound remotely like what was described, to me.I disagree. The reason that dragons don't just give you their treasure isn't because it would be unbalanced. I give XP regardless of how players overcome an encounter. Kill the dragon, get the XP. Overcome the dragon by other means (talking to it) and you get the same XP. Given that, it wouldn't be unreasonable to extrapolate that if you kill the dragon you get its treasure and if you overcome it some other way you still get the treasure. I have no issue with the party tricking the dragon somehow, like luring it away and then making off with the hoard.No, the reason that a dragon can't simply be convinced to give you its hoard is because dragons are avaricious and love treasure. It's like making a persuasion check to have a loving parent let you take their child away from them. Maybe it might work in some truly extreme circumstances (Zeus comes down from the heavens and demands the dragon's treasure, or the child will die if they remain with the parent). However, when I say an NPC won't do something I don't mean it's 100% impossible. If you beat down the dragon and give it a choice between death or losing its hoard, it will most likely choose to live another day. A few strange humans walking into it's lair and threatening it is arguably not a good enough reason. Those humans are more likely then not going to die if they fight, as far as the dragon is concerned. It is a dragon after all, and it doesn't know that those humans happen to be player characters. Yeah, a trait like "will not let the PCs pass without a fight" is generally a bad trait unless the creature is mind controlled (or something) and literally has to do it.Why won't it let them pass without a fight? Does it seemk death in glorious combat? Is it simply because it promised to do so to someone who abandoned it eons ago? Is it protecting someone or something?Each of those possibilities will lead to different potential outcomes. For example, in the abandonment example, if the PCs convince it that it was abandoned, it could let them pass after realizing its duty is pointless. If it is protecting something, it will probably not less them pass unless they can convince it that they can protect it better. In the case of seeking glorious death, it could be quite difficult to circumvent the guardian without fighting it.Just because something can be done badly doesn't make it bad.</blockquote>

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