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<blockquote data-quote="billd91" data-source="post: 5180815" data-attributes="member: 3400">I dunno. Over the course of even this brief discussion plus the link out to the other game blog, the use of illusionism seems to be drifting into broad territory. From the blog, it looks like illusionism is characterized by what my friends usually call quantum adventure design. It's the act of observing the encounter/location by the PCs that places it, usually because the DM wants to make sure something is found/encountered. Once placed, it stays put, but until actually observed it exists in some undefined state.The illusion, in this case, is that the player choice of direction for exploration made the difference between finding the encounter/location when it was really the DM's choice.But I'm not really seeing how adjusting some of the details of the encounter or location is illusionism just because it doesn't match intentions set down at a particular time. If I change a detail 2 days before the PCs encounter it, is it no longer illusionism? How about 5 seconds? How about between the time the encounter/situation starts and it is finally resolved?If we get to the point where I'm changing things simply because the players want it to be so, validating their choices, then I think I can see that we're creating the illusion that their choices could be bad ones or lead to failure. But killing off the BBEG based on a player's good choice that simply doesn't do quite enough damage on the die roll? I'm not sure I really follow that as illusionism. I also wouldn't see any illusionism in changing a detail because, thanks to player input, the DM realizes his original plans were deficient or could be made better in general without removing any chance for the PCs to succeed or fail based on player choices.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="billd91, post: 5180815, member: 3400"] I dunno. Over the course of even this brief discussion plus the link out to the other game blog, the use of illusionism seems to be drifting into broad territory. From the blog, it looks like illusionism is characterized by what my friends usually call quantum adventure design. It's the act of observing the encounter/location by the PCs that places it, usually because the DM wants to make sure something is found/encountered. Once placed, it stays put, but until actually observed it exists in some undefined state. The illusion, in this case, is that the player choice of direction for exploration made the difference between finding the encounter/location when it was really the DM's choice. But I'm not really seeing how adjusting some of the details of the encounter or location is illusionism just because it doesn't match intentions set down at a particular time. If I change a detail 2 days before the PCs encounter it, is it no longer illusionism? How about 5 seconds? How about between the time the encounter/situation starts and it is finally resolved? If we get to the point where I'm changing things simply because the players want it to be so, validating their choices, then I think I can see that we're creating the illusion that their choices could be bad ones or lead to failure. But killing off the BBEG based on a player's good choice that simply doesn't do quite enough damage on the die roll? I'm not sure I really follow that as illusionism. I also wouldn't see any illusionism in changing a detail because, thanks to player input, the DM realizes his original plans were deficient or could be made better in general without removing any chance for the PCs to succeed or fail based on player choices. [/QUOTE]

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