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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crimson Longinus" data-source="post: 8635947" data-attributes="member: 7025508">No, I'm pretty sure I'm not, it's just your binary lists fail to capture the reality of my game and games of a lot of people commonly play.Who defines what matters? And yes, whilst of course whom to ally with always tends to have some practical considerations involved, it also includes taking stance on moral issue, and deciding who to trust. The things you felt were important the characters can do without the system or other outside considerations exerting undue limits or pressure on them. So that's what's happening here.I generally try to build somewhat morally grey situations. People (and/including 'monsters') have their reasons, have their beliefs and motivations, and these often come to conflict. I'm not there to tell the players to which side to take, if any.Right. I get this. Can you get that in some games (hell, possibly in most games) some scenes are framed for this sort of reasons and some are framed in other reasons? It wouldn't even be unusual to have several reasons for framing a one scene. So what are we doing then?I mean, sure, it totally could be just "Oh, it says 'there be dragon's' on the map, let's go check it out." But it also could be "I need to prove my worth to the clan elders. Oh, it says 'there be dragon's' on the map! Becoming a dragon slayer and bringing a dragon head to hang in the high hall would sure get the respect of the elders, let's go there." Or something completely else, who knows. But the player interacting with established setting elements and incorporating them in the fulfilment of their dramatic needs in no way means that they cannot establish those needs in the first place, unless the setting is some sort of bizarre featureless white plain with nothing to materially anchor the needs to.Oh, and if you're going to say, "but the player needed to establish that the clan elders existed." No they didn't. They needed that there is some sort of society with authority structure, respect of which they wished to earn. And that will indubitably exist in some form practically in any setting.So that was ages ago, so I don't remember the details super clearly, and my GMing style and principles have probably evolved since. But yes, it is true that both me and and the other players mostly saw it as a dramatic device. The villain makes an offering to the hero, the hero refuses. But I also don't think that the fact that I saw that particular thing that way at the moment properly reflects how I generally view players making choices; not then and definitely not now. It was just that the cost was so obviously absurdly high and the villain was so obviously completely bonkers, that the likely outcome of the offer seemed rather clear to me. But I also followed my usual principles and let the player make the choice they wanted. Like I said earlier, when I frame situations I sometimes have and 'expected' outcomes in mind, in the sense of what I consider to be likely, but that this is in no way prescriptive. I certainly don't try to force things into that 'expected' outcome if it seems that the players want to do something completely different.No, it is rather different. Not completely different, but still. The Deathlord thing was a clear binary choice with immediate and obvious consequences. The harpy situation is more complex with several overlapping motives, and it is also risk-taking, consequences of which will be truly known only later. They both however share the similarity of the character sympathising (and at least party) agreeing with the validity of grievances of a creature which in most context would be seem as a clear antagonist. I also noted that the two characters who were most willing to accept the validity of the harpy's point of view are orcs. Whilst the world doesn't have massive prejudice against orcs, there certainly is some of that 'monster stigma' still going around. I don't know if that was just a coincidence, I would need to ask the players. And regardless, I this this is pretty clearly the player being able to make their own moral calls you were talking about.But there actually was other moment in the game that is more alike the Deathlord situation, though of course not in scope or even in emotional weight. But it was a character making a judgment of the situation that had drastic consequences.There was this criminal syndicate in the town the characters are in that is dealing with magical goods. The characters decided to investigate (one, but not the only reason being the warlock being obsessed with uncovering magical secrets and mysteries so this piqued their interest.) So the warlock comes up with a cover story about being this wealthy merchant that wants to do shady business with the syndicate and the rogue manages to arrange a meeting with their leader for the party. They meet in an abandoned warehouse, and there is ton of the crooks present. I assume it is very clear that the characters are on their turf, outgunned and outnumbered. There is bunch of talk with syndicate leader, who is this sort of charismatic and confident criminal master-mind type. The crucial dice rolls here are to see whether the crime lord buys the warlock's cover story, and the dice decide that the answer is resounding 'not even remotely.' So the leader confronts them and threatens them and demands them to tell why they're really there. The warlock who is rather confident (some would say overconfident) and proud (some would say arrogant) threatened the leader back. This didn't improve the attitude of the crime boss at all. The rogue (who, perhaps due her background and occupation seems to have a better read of the room) tries to defuse the situation, and starts to talk about how they were actually just planning to do some crime but wanted to scout the local scene to not step on anyone's toes and perhaps the party could do some favour to the crime boss... And we never know whether that would have worked (it could have) because the warlock, who doesn't want to back down and end up in subservient position starts to cast a fireball!And holy crap, I though that was a really bad call and was sure that they would die! The people present were not in any way or form designed as any sort of fair or even remotely survivable encounter, it was just what the syndicate would logically bring, and they absolutely had stacked the deck in their favour. The odds look absolutely grim and the rogue actually decides to flee and even manages to exit the building, but eventually changes her mind and returns to help*. (Which is absolutely critical as she's the most effective damage dealer in the group.) Luckily for the party, the challenge rating is a complete joke, and against all odds they somehow managed to prevail. It was super close, insanely dangerous. After the fight the rogue (the character, not the player) was so furious with the warlock that she punched the warlock with full force, absolutely hilariously knocking off the warlocks last remaining hit points!It really wasn't any sort of deep character drama but it was a glorious concoction of character motivations, personalities, independent setting elements and some luck creating an unpredictable explosive mix. And that's what I'm here for!(*It is also interesting how the rogue's background involves bailing on her previous crew due some ideological differences.)Yes, clearish enough. But this another pair of binary lists that again brings us the crux of the matter, and I genuinely hope that you this time actually address it. Those list are either intentionally or accidentally highly misleading. Yes, V:tM game probably will address the things on the second list. It also will absolutely address the things that are of the type of the things on the first list. The cost of immortally, trying to retain one's humanity vs embracing the beast, and of course a bunch of other things some of which are not even directly about vampirism, but rather about drama and tensions regarding relationships, powers structures etc.So this is what I want you to address: what if the game has a mix of things, some of which that are on your story now lists and some that are on your not-story-now lists? What's happening then? What is it? Because every iteration of these you have produced has elicited in me the same response: a lot of these do not exclude each other and a ton of games combine stuff from both categories. So could we just please accept the reality and acknowledge that this is thing?Right. So it is fuzzy, pretty arbitrary and rather subjective. Agreed.Yes, the last one answers more questions. But the first two still answer some questions too. And I think it is absolutely valid to more tightly define the premise in confines of which we are answering the questions. I'm sure you love this, but it is a spectrum.If what you're getting at there is whether the dice rolls established the presence of some setting elements or merely gave the characters access to information regarding already existing setting elements, the answer is probably closer to the latter. But of course the limited amount of definition the setting can actually have in pre-play stage, the characters' inquiries certainly in a sense caused some more definition to emerge. For example whilst the a vague wavefunction of rich people existed in my description of the area as more affluent looking, the precise wealthy individuals and the location of their specific houses only collapsed into existence due the inquiries made by the rogue.No, that would be unfair. Sure, wanting to rob a house might not be a super deep goal that tells us great deal about the nature of humanity (though considering the history of humanity, I might not even be so sure about that,) but it absolutely derives from the motivations of the character which in turn derive from their nature. In this instance I wouldn't describe it just as old fashioned greed either, there is a quite substantial dose of healthy punk attitude and 'sticking it to the man' involved in here. The character has distrust of 'upper classes' and authority figures. She also use thievery to 'punish' people she think are deserving, like the stealing the fancy ring of a guard captain she felt was arrogant and dismissive. So sort of like Robin Hood, except instead of giving the loot to the poor she spends it on booze and fast women!And yeah, these are not super complex characters, and not all of them have deep traumas and issues (though some definitely do.) (This is pulpy action adventure, not deep character drama.) But they absolutely are well defined characters with their own personalities and drives, which shape the direction of play.</blockquote>

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