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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5180826" data-attributes="member: 4937">In my opinion it doesn't, and if it does, I'll need to refine my definition a little.  There is something different going on here than in any of my four examples, and different from what I've been talking about.   To answer that question, let me dig into what I think the problem with illusionism is.  The problem with illusionism is that its always a form of deception.  It doesn't work in the intended way if the players see through the deception.  If the DM reveals how the trick works, it not only loses its magic but in some cases reveals that the DM has broken an implicit social contract.  The gamist at the table is playing to win.  If its revealed that the DM gave him the win (or made the win harder than it should have been), that's a violation of social contract.  The same is true of the problem solving player when you validate his first thoughts on the answer to the puzzle presented, regardless if that was the 'real' solution to the puzzle.  Another player at the table may believe that he has real player agency.  Finding out that it didn't matter whether he went left or right, can make that player grumpy to say the least.   But even if you have players who are willing to be decieved and accept that, it still loses its magic when you reveal the trick.  So, let's take the two examples.1) You are playing the game when a player says, "I bet its mind flayers."  You inwardly think, "Yeah, mind flayers would be really cool." and change the trolls to mind flayers.  This is illusionism.2) You prepared two weeks of material.  In between sessions, you see a billboard and you think, "Mind flayers would be cooler than trolls.  I should do mind flayers instead.  This is not illusionism.The differences are subtle, but they all come down to at some level deception.  In the first case, you are secretly changing in the middle of a game in response to a player comment.   In the second case, you are secretly changing in responce to your own second thoughts and not in response to anything happening in a session.   In the first case, your impartiality is clearly in question.   Moreover, you are much less likely to be willing to reveal to the player after the session that you only put the mind flayers in at the last moment, than you are in the second case.  In the second case, the player would probably shrug because no implied social contract has been violated.  You were just 'doing your job'.  But players are much more likely to feel that they have been violated if they find that you are using there own ideas 'against them'.   That's why you have alot of tables out there were players willl scold other players for 'giving the DM ideas'.  I think this is harder to define in a Socratic fashion that it is to just define by some sort of empherical test.  If you would have no problem revealing to the player the trick and the player would not be disappointed to learn the trick, then its probably not illusionism.  This test has the difficulty that it seems to make the definition of illusionism relative to the group, but practically I think that what is really going on is that the level of illusionism that players feel is acceptable varies from group to group.  And, since I don't think illusionism is necessarily bad, I think groups should play with the level of illusionism that they are comfortable with.   Some groups embrace the illusion if it achieves the result they want.  Others want to do away with any trace of 'hard illusionism'.  While we are here:3) A player mentions mind flayers.  You think to yourself, "After we finish the trolls, I should have an adventure with mind flayers" Is in my opinion in a very gray area.  It's alot less problimatic than #1 above, which is in my opinion clearly hard illusionism.  Exactly how much illusionism is going on in #3 is a matter that can be debated, but I think that at the very least its a good example of the 'soft illusionism' I'm talking about - the DM's imagination is limited, so things exist in the world only if the DM is prompted to think about them.Humans have a tendency to want to think entirely in qualitative differences.  When you start dealing with quantitative differences between things, human language is ill-equipped to deal with it.  However, I think we can agree that quantitative differences between things do exist and are meaningful.</blockquote>

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