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<blockquote data-quote="Crimson Longinus" data-source="post: 9230901" data-attributes="member: 7025508">I don't think it terribly much matters whether the GM has de jure power to reject player action declarations, or just can de facto do so by social contract by convincing the player to abandon their action declaration. It is different, sure, but ultimately the end result is the same.So examples about this are often absurd like punching planet in half or the thing about Brother Jo's clothes. And I guess it would be good if the game had some codified structure for rejecting such too, but in practice that is not such a big deal as people playing in good faith simply won't do this.But the issue can arise even if people play in good faith. If people in the town have been losing faith because rumours about heretical papers that are claimed to prove that the prophet is a fraud and the faith is based on a lie, it is perfectly reasonable for the PC to confront the mayor who is clearly part of this heresy and have a goal of &quot;I compel him to divulge the truth about the location of heretical papers.&quot;Except that the prep might say that it is only the undertaker that knows the location of the papers, thus the mayor does not possess the truth to divulge.And in this instance it would make perfect sense for the GM to scale down the stakes from that to &quot;compel the mayor to reveal what he knows about the heresy&quot;, but that also would be GM saying no based on secret myth.Another issue is that whilst everyone would try to only make action declarations are &quot;reasonable&quot; people might have differing conceptions about what is reasonable in fiction.Ultimately any conflict resolution game needs to have boundaries, either formal or informal, about what the allowable action declarations are.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Crimson Longinus, post: 9230901, member: 7025508"] I don't think it terribly much matters whether the GM has de jure power to reject player action declarations, or just can de facto do so by social contract by convincing the player to abandon their action declaration. It is different, sure, but ultimately the end result is the same. So examples about this are often absurd like punching planet in half or the thing about Brother Jo's clothes. And I guess it would be good if the game had some codified structure for rejecting such too, but in practice that is not such a big deal as people playing in good faith simply won't do this. But the issue can arise even if people play in good faith. If people in the town have been losing faith because rumours about heretical papers that are claimed to prove that the prophet is a fraud and the faith is based on a lie, it is perfectly reasonable for the PC to confront the mayor who is clearly part of this heresy and have a goal of "I compel him to divulge the truth about the location of heretical papers." Except that the prep might say that it is only the undertaker that knows the location of the papers, thus the mayor does not possess the truth to divulge. And in this instance it would make perfect sense for the GM to scale down the stakes from that to "compel the mayor to reveal what he knows about the heresy", but that also would be GM saying no based on secret myth. Another issue is that whilst everyone would try to only make action declarations are "reasonable" people might have differing conceptions about what is reasonable in fiction. Ultimately any conflict resolution game needs to have boundaries, either formal or informal, about what the allowable action declarations are. [/QUOTE]

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