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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8011637" data-attributes="member: 42582">I wasn't contemplating "after the first time". But equally your description is not contemplating "after the first time", given that - after the first time - many things could have changed (burned or broken buildings; injured, departed or deceased people; etc - I mean, this whole thing started from a reference to burning down an orphanage).That's like saying that a Lonely Planet guidebook, or a street directory, has more depth than JRRT's description of Minas Tirith. I simply don't accept the proposition.A simple description of a forlorn face in the window of the curio shop might - depending on context, of course - provide more depth than any amount of description of building layouts and signage.As it happens, this came up in our session yesterday. The PCs led their warband out on a night time raid against a group of Huns. They had their scout, Algol the bloodthirsty, leading the way. I had the player whose PC has Algol as part of his retinue make a Hunting + Presence check against an appropriate difficulty - the check failed.So I narrated that the group spent most of the night wandering through the hills trying to find the Huns, which eventually they did as the red glow of dawn was just barely visible on the horizon. As a result of spending the night wandering, the PCs and their forces had a one-die penalty to their checks during the ensuing battle.In system terms, what is happening here is that the players have asked for a scene: We find the Huns during the night. I have decided that there is a risk attached to this, of being tired from staying up all night. So I call for a check (in other systems this might be a check to establish an augment, or avoid a complication - eg in Burning Wheel it might be a linked test). The check fails, and so I frame the desired scene but with an attendant penalty applying to the PCs.Deciding whether the players should just get the scene they want - We're in Cheapside Way at midday - or whether it should be complicated in some fashion or even outright denied - is an important aspect of GMing. These decisions involve questions of pacing, degree of challenge, what aspects of the fiction and the characters are to be foregrounded (eg in my example the fact that one of the PCs has a hunter and scout in his service becomes foregrounded), etc.Handling this sort of thing badly - eg go back to [USER=21169]@Doug McCrae[/USER]'s description of his game with Gordon - is in my view one major reason for poor RPG experiences.</blockquote>

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