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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kenada" data-source="post: 8648835" data-attributes="member: 70468">Does protagonism need to be the ability to introduce the specific location (i.e., the safe has the documents), or is it sufficient to introduce that evidence exists, and then to use one’s plot and situational authority to compel the GM to provide for its discovery?This is an inversion of the villain behind the mask scenario in Edwards’s discussion. Instead of finding out who the villain is by  (owned by whom the PCs assume is the villain) taking off the mask, you are finding the incriminating mask in a safe. But if the mask is kept under the bed, then that is what the GM would need to provide when it comes time for the scene with the discovery.What I am getting at is the distribution of authority sufficient for protagonistic play. It would seem plot authority is necessary and at least shared situational authority. The issue is over content authority. You are suggesting that if the players lack content authority (e.g., because the game is setting-centric) than the content must be known to them.So to bring things back around to the safe discussion, the players would have to know that so-and-so is up to no good, and this is because of the link from content to plot authority. They would not be able to exercise the latter without knowing, and if it is kept hidden, then the GM is seizing plot authority in that case (by making the decision about what is revealed).I assume that the only thing that keeps the players from charging the castle immediately is the separation of what they know from what their characters know. If said villain is perceived as an upstanding member of the community, then the players would have to establish a link they could use to credibly make their accusations.I would speculate that the more backstory (as Edwards puts it) that one has prepped, the more one has to reveal up front to facilitate player control of plot authority, and so detailing ahead of time that the evidence is in the safe is probably a worse idea that having a mechanic to suggest there is evidence and then to situate it as appropriate (e.g., the PCs are searching the office, and “you find a safe where you think the evidence is” is as valid a response to the search fortune as “you find a ciphered letter at the bottom of a drawer”).</blockquote>

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