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<blockquote data-quote="Imaginary Number" data-source="post: 5180542" data-attributes="member: 63056">I'm still not sure I understand your definition of &quot;illusionism,&quot; so please enlighten me if I'm not getting it.&nbsp; The idea seems to describe a situation in which the DM has predetermined a result and nevertheless allows a player to believe that the player's actions somehow will affect that result.&nbsp; If that's correct, I don't think you're fairly characterizing Fifth Element's approach -- picking up good ideas from players and running with them doesn't involve predetermining anything; the determination starts from the player's idea and goes from there.&nbsp; But I'll let him pick up that particular cudgel if he's so inclined.&nbsp;From a more broad perspective, I disagree with your definitional &quot;bright line&quot; because it obscures the wide variation in gaming styles that Celebrim describes very well above.&nbsp; Some DMs like to run adventure paths with pre-written story arcs; some like to run a series of unlinked but pre-planned adventures; some like to allow the players to wander around the campaign world and see what happens as long as they let the DM know in advance where they're going (that's me; I'm not very good at improvising); some like to go full sandbox and have the players wander around as they will.&nbsp; You seem to be suggesting that all approaches short of the &quot;full sandbox&quot; are bad because they involve &quot;illusionism&quot; somehow, and I don't think that's true.&nbsp; Each approach involves meaningful player choice on some level -- the only difference is where the out-of-bounds lines are.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Imaginary Number, post: 5180542, member: 63056"] I'm still not sure I understand your definition of "illusionism," so please enlighten me if I'm not getting it. The idea seems to describe a situation in which the DM has predetermined a result and nevertheless allows a player to believe that the player's actions somehow will affect that result. If that's correct, I don't think you're fairly characterizing Fifth Element's approach -- picking up good ideas from players and running with them doesn't involve predetermining anything; the determination starts from the [U]player's[/U] idea and goes from there. But I'll let him pick up that particular cudgel if he's so inclined. From a more broad perspective, I disagree with your definitional "bright line" because it obscures the wide variation in gaming styles that Celebrim describes very well above. Some DMs like to run adventure paths with pre-written story arcs; some like to run a series of unlinked but pre-planned adventures; some like to allow the players to wander around the campaign world and see what happens as long as they let the DM know in advance where they're going (that's me; I'm not very good at improvising); some like to go full sandbox and have the players wander around as they will. You seem to be suggesting that all approaches short of the "full sandbox" are bad because they involve "illusionism" somehow, and I don't think that's true. Each approach involves meaningful player choice on some level -- the only difference is where the out-of-bounds lines are. [/QUOTE]

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