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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7313482" data-attributes="member: 42582">Following up on this line of discussion (which is slightly tangential to the ostensible topic of the thread, but relevant generally to RPGing involving conspiracies, wacky plans etc):I think [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]'s point (at least in part) is that, in the context of a RPG - where everything is fiction - there is no evidence in the sense that [MENTION=2518]Derren[/MENTION] refers to, except by dint of GM authorship. Which means that if the players have their PCs to take steps to gather such &quot;evidence&quot;, this means - in effect - that the players are waiting around for the GM to feed them more plot and backstory. Hence chaochou's characterisation of it as railroading.Conversely, if the game is to have content othe than that authored/pre-judged by the GM, then either (i) the players get to write it (this is what happens under &quot;say 'yes' or roll the dice&quot; GMing when the GM says 'yes'), or (ii) we have some other process for generating it (this is the &quot;roll the dice&quot; side of the aforementioned slogan).Traveller doesn't expressly call out &quot;say 'yes' or roll the dice&quot;, but can be played in more-or-less that way, I think, as there are dice rolls for nearly every aspect of content generation and resolution! In the paticular context we're discussing here, the basic dice roll would be a reaction roll (perhaps with a negative DM if it is established in the fiction that the NPCs are, or have reason to be, suspicious; perhaps with a countervailing positive DM if the established fiction suggests the NPCs have a reason to be sympathetic or generous to the PCs - the Moldvay Basic rulebook gives an example of this in the context of D&amp;D's reaction roll table; and I used this approach in our last session when the PCs had an interview with a bishop on Enlil).If that reaction roll is positive, then the sort of backstory that chaochou has suggested could be one explanation for that, ie for why the NPCs react more favourably to a distress call than one would expect given standard protocols etc.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7313482, member: 42582"] Following up on this line of discussion (which is slightly tangential to the ostensible topic of the thread, but relevant generally to RPGing involving conspiracies, wacky plans etc): I think [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]'s point (at least in part) is that, in the context of a RPG - where everything is fiction - there is no [I]evidence[/I] in the sense that [MENTION=2518]Derren[/MENTION] refers to, except by dint of GM authorship. Which means that if the players have their PCs to take steps to gather such "evidence", this means - in effect - that the players are waiting around for the GM to feed them more plot and backstory. Hence chaochou's characterisation of it as railroading. Conversely, if the game is to have content othe than that authored/pre-judged by the GM, then either (i) the players get to write it (this is what happens under "say 'yes' or roll the dice" GMing when the GM says 'yes'), or (ii) we have some other process for generating it (this is the "roll the dice" side of the aforementioned slogan). Traveller doesn't expressly call out "say 'yes' or roll the dice", but can be played in more-or-less that way, I think, as there are dice rolls for nearly every aspect of content generation and resolution! In the paticular context we're discussing here, the basic dice roll would be a reaction roll (perhaps with a negative DM if it is established in the fiction that the NPCs are, or have reason to be, suspicious; perhaps with a countervailing positive DM if the established fiction suggests the NPCs have a reason to be sympathetic or generous to the PCs - the Moldvay Basic rulebook gives an example of this in the context of D&D's reaction roll table; and I used this approach in our last session when the PCs had an interview with a bishop on Enlil). If that reaction roll is positive, then the sort of backstory that chaochou has suggested could be one explanation for that, ie for why the NPCs react more favourably to a distress call than one would expect given standard protocols etc. [/QUOTE]

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