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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5660989" data-attributes="member: 2067">I think I understand what you're driving at, but do you have a more concrete example? It might help me see what you're talking about a little more clearly.From where I'm sitting, it seems pretty obvious to say "character decisions affect play." Characters choose left or right at the junction, choose Power A or Power B to use, choose to rest or not, choose to stay or run, choose to goof around in a tavern, or go fight the orc hoard on the borders...stuff like that. But all that stuff, when it affects play, comes to bear on the combat system, ultimately. How hard or easy is this, the next, or the last combat going to be? Do we fight the orcs far away, or do we fight them in the town? Do we fight them when we are well-prepared, or do we fight them when they've got the edge? And from a more practical concern, on a more meta level, it seems like the players take the DM's "plans" into account. If the DM has the battlemat for the Orc Encampment sitting behind him, do we really want him to improvise a town map on the spur of the moment? It probably won't be as fun to fight something the DM had to ass-pull at the last moment...It seems less clear to me that a story reward -- giving a character, say, knighthood -- necessarily affects play. It doesn't really matter in D&D if I'm Cuthbert or Saint Cuthbert, I'm still going to have to go into that dungeon and kill that dragon, and the "saint" isn't going to help me do it any faster. It can still be valuable for someone who seeks it out those story features, of course. If someone is explicitly like, "Hey, DM, my rogue wants to live a rich life among the wealthy, not this guttersnipe existence he's so used to!", then adding flourishes like a room full of concubines is a good way to make that player happy. But that room isn't going to matter when you go back into the dungeon and try to kill the dragon, and it's not something that is any more important than how a DM describes how the orc dies when it hits 0 hp. It's also something that rogue could've had from the get-go, just by saying "My rogue spends all her gold on luxurious inn rooms and hired lovers, so she is already in her paradise."I'm a lazy DM, so I'm naturally going to focus on what the system already supports. Since there's no real effect to giving out squires and titles and land grants and princess wives and whatnot, I don't generally give them out, unless it's clear that the player wants these little flourishes. And in that case, I don't consider them rewards, really. Just descriptions. Instead of "You find 1,000 gold pieces," I say, "You find a deed to land that is probably worth about 1,000 gold pieces." My job's done at that point, either way.</blockquote>

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