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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hriston" data-source="post: 8498010" data-attributes="member: 6787503">I believe it’s to gain a way to settle conflicts between competing fiction. E.g. if a PC is the target of suggestion and fails their saving throw, the rule settles any conflict which might arise between the spellcaster's suggested course of action and the player’s roleplaying. I.e. the target “pursues the course of action you described to the best of its ability.” The player's authority over decisions about what their character does is thereby limited until the spell ends, their desire, like that of the PC, being subordinated to that of the caster where the two are in conflict.Established fiction operates in much the same way as a rule. If the DM has described a solid wall in a dungeon, e.g., the player is constrained in their roleplaying to move their character along a path that does not pass through the wall. Where the DM's description of the environment and the player's roleplaying are in conflict, roleplaying is subordinated to what has already been established. This preserves the relationship between player and PC because although both the PC and the player would like for the PC to be able to walk through the wall, their desire is constrained by the prevailing fiction.If a player's character is shoved by another creature, and the player loses a contest to determine the outcome, the player's will that their character resists the shove is subordinated to the outcome that the PC is moved against the will of both the player and the character. Or if a player says, "I kill the orc," and the DM says, "Not if the orc kills you first," and invokes mechanics that result in a win for the orc, then the PC is killed against the will of both the player and their character. The player's roleplaying is constrained to account for the fiction that their PC was forced to move or that their PC was killed (which is quite constraining indeed).I think it's notable that in all of these cases, limitations on the player's roleplaying are in alignment with external limitations, magical or otherwise, faced by the PC in the fiction and that player and PC are thus aligned as well.Now suppose that a group's understanding of the rules included limiting a player's roleplaying when it comes into conflict with what the group has decided is the will, desire, or inclination of the player's character. In this case the player and the PC are not in alignment but are opposed to one another. I'd be curious to know what such a group gains by creating such a conflict and by settling it in favor of what it surmises as the PC's decision over that of the player.</blockquote>

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