NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8014320" data-attributes="member: 29398">I'm not sure about this one at all.You're conflating level of player agency - the ability to declare actions and play the character as intended - with level of challenge being posed by the GM.  They're not the same thing.In your above example the player's agency in each case is exactly the same.  The second GM, however, is simply making things more challenging for the PC/player than is the first; and is not automatically assuming the disguise succeeds in its intended task but is instead putting that disguise to a further test. Either way is fine, I suppose, though my preference leans toward the added-challenge side: an easy game is not a fun game.Here we're on to an entirely different question: whether or not players can add or modify setting elements.Players adding or changing static setting elements, i.e. things they've yet to have their PCs interact with, falls outside my definition of player agency (control of the character) and gets into a much messier question of who actually controls the setting and its elements.I say this control resides - and almost completely must reside - with the GM, if only because simple human nature is going to trend players towards adding or modifying setting elements to the advantage of their PCs most of the time in attempts to reduce or overcome challenges.  In theory the GM is a neutral arbiter, and while on being asked if there's a chandelier* she's well within her purview to say "Sure, it's over the central table." or wherever she should by no means feel obligated to put one in just because a player asked about it.* - one might ask, if there's a chandelier there that's big enough to swing from, why it wasn't already mentioned in the room description...</blockquote>

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