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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6589310" data-attributes="member: 42582">The difference is purely aesthetic, as far as I can see. I mentioned upthread (multiple times) that choosing left vs right might have an aesthetic dimension.But that does not make it meaningful."Players roll all the dice" systems are interesting (the one I'm most familiar with is the 4e skill challenge), but not in my view because they empower players. Rather, they (i) affect the practical pacing of resolution at the table and (ii) they oblige the GM to think hard about framing conficts and (in Dungeon World parlance) making moves in such a way that the players are prompted to declare actions in response on behalf of their PCs.To me, this reinforces that your conception of player agency is limited to making action declarations for their PCs in a world entirely authored by the GM - which means, therefore, choosing among the options that the GM has provided. Frequently in circumstances of such little knowledge as to outcomes and impact that the choice is, for practical purposes, random or nearly so.This is one way to look at it. It's not my preferred way. When my players metagame off my preferences (most notoriously, my preference for demons and undead as enemies), none of us at the table pretends that this models the PCs' knowledge of the gameworld!I have lost track of your example. Do the players know that taking the left path will be a waste of time? Can they know, and if so, how?And if the GM has written into the gameworld this waste of time, why? What is the point of writing in an option which, if the players do choose it, means that they will lose? The question is not rhetorical - you have not actually stated a reason why writing such a thing would be good GMing.The second sentence is correct - that is the whole point.But the first sentence contradicts something you said upthread, when you said that the players don't choose to encounter the mysterious stranger.You haven't answered - what harm, or wrong, does the GM do if s/he lets player choices dictate the backstory of the mysterious stranger.Correct. That's what I call a player-driven game.I don't understand this strong normative language, as if you somehow "are in touch" with how the game was "intended" to be. Intended by whom? Gary Gygax? You've already rejected him as an authority upthread, and in any event, to be blunt, I think I've got at least as good a handle as you do on how Gygaxian play works.Intended by the 4e designers? Which ones? And what is your evidence? As for "how the game is played" I again ask, by whom? Certainly not by me or [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION], and we've both been playing the game for longer than you have!Frankly, I think when you say "how the game was intended to be" all you actually succeed in conveying is "How you prefer the game to be played, based on certain preferences and habits you formed when learning AD&D 2nd ed."</blockquote>

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