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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8011778" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't really understand what you think is at stake here, or why you find this point is an important one to make.The distinction that is important to me, which the rulesets I referred to bring out, is between the following two things:(i) enforcing genre contraints and fictional positioning when a player is making a decision as to what it is that his/her PC tries to do;(ii) invoking the action resolution mechanics, which may include elements of GM adjudication, in order to find out what happens in the fiction.The first is mostly about negotiation and consensus among the participants. The GM has a special responsibiility, but isn't the sole arbiter of what can be done within the constraints of genre and fictional positioning. For instance, in my 4e game it was the player of the invoker/wizard who would often take the lead in deciding what was or wasn't possible as far as magical effects were concerned.The second is not about negotiation at all: in all the games I mentioned it's the player's job to declare actions for his/her PC and its the GM's job to apply and adjudicate the action resolution mechanics, in order to find out what happens.These quite different at-the-table processes make it important to me to draw the distinction.Conversely, running them together to my mind confuses responsibilities at the table. And it confuses (i) the adjudication of established fictional positioning to decide whether or not a mooted action is feasible with (ii) resolving a declared action by reference to unilateral GM conceptions of the fiction (eg as found in the GM's notes or extrapolated therefrome).I'm not 100% sure who the target of this is: but from my distinction between (i) and (ii) above I hope I've made it clear that I see genre constraints and managing fictional positioning as something where shared agency and negotiation/consensus are appropriate - though I do think that in a fairly trad game the GM has a distinctive leadership responsibility here - whereas (ii) is different: the player's agency consists in declaring an action for his/her PC, and the GM's job in adjudicating it in good faith.I hope this also brings out why I don't like adjudication based on secret fiction (ie GM notes and the like) because this tries to straddle (i) and (ii) in an unhappy way: like (i) it is the imposition of fictional positioning considerations but without any opportunity for negotiation or consensus, and that is because it pretends to be or presents itself as a versio of (ii).I should add my standard caveat: I'm not talking about OSR-ish/"skilled play" here, where secret information in the GM's notes is de rigeur, and players are expected to discover that through various processes including the trial-and-error of action declaration. The flip side is that in that sort of play the GM has a very onerous responsibility to be exceedingly fair in not changing or departing from the notes, because that risks making the game competely arbitrary and subject to the GM's whims. But no one in this thread seems to be playing that sort of game.I haven't seen those arguments from anyone, but maybe I haven't read closely enough.The only poster I've seen link the Burgomaster's reacttion to genre is me - I said that Gothic Horrors + Renaissance doesn't seem to necessitate off-with-their-heads rulers and does seem to invite mad rulers having their mansions burn down with them inside it.I've seen people say that the Burgomaster's reaction is established by the GM's notes (or, in this case, the module text) but I haven't seen anyone say that it followed from the established fiction - and that seems right, because only the OP could know that and the OP hasn't really chimed in on this particular issue.</blockquote>

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