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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kenada" data-source="post: 9208629" data-attributes="member: 70468">My group was a 3e then Pathfinder group for a long time. There was a certain expectation that NPCs would work more or less like PCs, so having an NPC be different was surprising in not a good way. They got over it, but there would be occasional snark about it.Potential consequences in my homebrew system have to be obvious or communicated up front to players. The system prescribes when the referee gets to bring those into play. It would be poor play to do something anyway even when the PC got a success (rolls are for outcomes not tasks). I also (currently) have clocks. Their state is public knowledge as is what happens when they go off. In general, information should be public and known to the players (but not necessarily to the characters).Regarding bad outcomes like ignoring a clock, if the players choose to ignore it knowing the consequences, then those should happen when it goes off. The referee is meant to be a neutral referee, so trying to make sure certain things do or do not happen would be inappropriate play on their part. In a sense, the campaign is like an experiment to find out whether the players can accomplish the campaign goal they set in the first session. The referee should be just taking care of it (not influencing it). If there’s something the referee thinks ought to happen, there are (or will be) ways to systematize that and disclaim decision-making.For example, there is a fire dragon that lives in or near the ruined capital ~40km north of the area where the PCs are building a settlement. It is known to range as far south as where they are (because it was sighted earlier in the campaign flying away from the area), so I thought: it’s eventually going to come back. I put it to a clock. Every time the clock ticks, the progress has to be surfaced in a way the PCs would know (e.g., they spotted a fire dragon flying in the sky while searching the area north of their settlement for stirge nests). If they don’t want to keep the dragon away, they’ll take steps to pull the clock back in the other direction and clear it. Killing the dragon is an obvious possibility, but it’s not necessarily the only one. (I don’t have any particular solution planned.)</blockquote>

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