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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6306116" data-attributes="member: 42582">I agree with this - with both parts of it - ie (i) that the players' action declarations reflect their sense of what is consistent with and viable within the session, and (ii) that blocking those delcarations, rather than engaging the mechanics to resolve them, undermines the players' immersion in the game.The difference is that (i) the GM has not &quot;pre-decided&quot; - s/he has decided in response to a player action declaration or expression of desire - and (ii) the player is getting what s/he wants, and the game is progressing in accordance with the player's conception of what s/he wants his/her PC to be doing.I could not think of anything more tedious. The whole notion of side-quests, fetch-quests etc is just horrible. I want the game to be focused on what the players think matters to their characters, not busywork invented by the GM.When we're talking about the range of feasible approaches to RPGing, I don't think the notion of &quot;right&quot; is very helpful. The players don't have a &quot;right&quot; to anything. But for different groups of players, different sorts of approaches might be more or less enjoyable.In my own case, the decision to say yes will be based not on secret backstory, but upon what, in my judgement, will best conduce to getting play focused on something interesting. This is relative to what the players want. It's also relative to what I can do as a GM. (For instance, I have at least on player who would really enjoy mass combats in the game, but I don't give them to him, because I can't run them very well. I'm not much of a wargamer.)Conversely, if the dwarven prophecy thing was part of my game, then it would come out during the course of the action resolution of the PCs trying to obtain their audience - and success in the skill challenge would turn, in part, on whether or not they were able to work around it. (&quot;These aren't the dwarves you're looking for&quot; or &quot;Here's a counter-prophecy&quot; or even &quot;They're not dwarves at all - they're gnomish agents in disguise and on a secret mission!&quot;)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6306116, member: 42582"] I agree with this - with both parts of it - ie (i) that the players' action declarations reflect their sense of what is consistent with and viable within the session, and (ii) that blocking those delcarations, rather than engaging the mechanics to resolve them, undermines the players' immersion in the game. The difference is that (i) the GM has not "pre-decided" - s/he has decided in response to a player action declaration or expression of desire - and (ii) the player is getting what s/he wants, and the game is progressing in accordance with the player's conception of what s/he wants his/her PC to be doing. I could not think of anything more tedious. The whole notion of side-quests, fetch-quests etc is just horrible. I want the game to be focused on what the players think matters to their characters, not busywork invented by the GM. When we're talking about the range of feasible approaches to RPGing, I don't think the notion of "right" is very helpful. The players don't have a "right" to anything. But for different groups of players, different sorts of approaches might be more or less enjoyable. In my own case, the decision to say yes will be based not on secret backstory, but upon what, in my judgement, will best conduce to getting play focused on something interesting. This is relative to what the players want. It's also relative to what I can do as a GM. (For instance, I have at least on player who would really enjoy mass combats in the game, but I don't give them to him, because I can't run them very well. I'm not much of a wargamer.) Conversely, if the dwarven prophecy thing was part of my game, then it would come out during the course of the action resolution of the PCs trying to obtain their audience - and success in the skill challenge would turn, in part, on whether or not they were able to work around it. ("These aren't the dwarves you're looking for" or "Here's a counter-prophecy" or even "They're not dwarves at all - they're gnomish agents in disguise and on a secret mission!") [/QUOTE]

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