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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 4330269" data-attributes="member: 29398">I beg to differ.  The "free and clear phase", to stick with that term, happens whenever a party has finished an adventure or storyline, divided its treasury, done its training, and is deciding *in character* what to do next.Sometimes, one or more characters have something specific they want to do; be it something arising from an earlier story, a desire to explore a part of the world they haven't seen, or whatever.Other times, the DM might have something cooked up behind the scenes that the characters will eventually run into no matter where they go.Yet other times, the players might go out of character, turn to the DM, and ask "do you have anything planned for us?".As for authority...to me, saying that authority rests in "the world" is the same as saying it rests in "the DM", as the DM creates the world.  The judge-courtroom angle holds no water, as the judge did not create the laws.  The DM, however, did create the world...and is also free to amend the written rules as she sees fit as to how things work within it.  A judge can't change the law on a whim.And as for who does the narrating (and some must be done, or there is no story at all; and by definition there must be some story unless the characters have merely Done Nothing) there are two answers.  On a broad scale, most of it falls to the DM via deciding what the greater world does and how such affects the characters - if at all.  On a small scale, however, more of it falls to the players/characters via the in-the-moment decisions they make (which quest do we undertake? Which hall do we go down? Do we free the slaves or kill them?  Etc.)  And the reverse is also true: on a broad scale, the characters often find themselves reacting to the world, while on a small scale the DM is often reacting to the characters/players.Lanefan</blockquote>

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