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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6849508" data-attributes="member: 42582">As I asked upthread - is there some reason to think that the campaign would otherwise have come to an end for lack of gaming goodness?If not, how is it relevant that the gaming goodness might now incorporate this particular event? If the threshold for good GMing is that the fiction that results can be incorporated into subsequent ingame situations, that's not a very high threshold.If, by the armour, the player means the armour excluding the gauntlets and ring, why is the player bound by the interpretation that was not intended?I don't see that the player failed a social encounter at all. The player didn't mishandle negotiations with the blacksmith. The player didn't forget that the gauntlets and ring were valuable. The &quot;challenge&quot; in this situation was entirely metagame: the player did not use the GM's preferred canonical phrase for referring to the armour excluding the gauntlets and ring, and as a result got hosed for it.That is why some posters think it was a &quot;gotcha&quot;. Others might disagree, because they might think that this sort of &quot;precision wording&quot; play is fair game. But whether or not it's fair game, it has nothing to do with engaging the fiction of the social encounter, let alone doing so well or poorly!(As an exception: some posters seem to think that the ranger PC plonked down a sack of stuff and didn't remove the gauntlets or ring. In that case there is something occurring in the fiction that corresponds to the &quot;precision wording&quot; requirement that has been imposed. But this is what makes me ask whether or not the NPC purchaser had a ring of X-ray vision. If not, how did he see inside the sack without the ranger also getting to see?)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6849508, member: 42582"] As I asked upthread - is there some reason to think that the campaign would otherwise have come to an end for lack of gaming goodness? If not, how is it relevant that the gaming goodness might now incorporate this particular event? If the threshold for [I]good GMing[/I] is that the fiction that results can be incorporated into subsequent ingame situations, that's not a very high threshold. If, by [I]the armour[/I], the player means [I]the armour excluding the gauntlets and ring[/I], why is the player bound by the interpretation that was not intended? I don't see that the player failed a social encounter at all. The player didn't mishandle negotiations with the blacksmith. The player didn't forget that the gauntlets and ring were valuable. The "challenge" in this situation was entirely metagame: the player did not use the GM's preferred canonical phrase for referring to [I]the armour excluding the gauntlets and ring[/I], and as a result got hosed for it. That is why some posters think it was a "gotcha". Others might disagree, because they might think that this sort of "precision wording" play is fair game. But whether or not it's fair game, it has nothing to do with engaging the fiction of the social encounter, [I]let alone[/I] doing so well or poorly! (As an exception: some posters seem to think that the ranger PC plonked down a sack of stuff and didn't remove the gauntlets or ring. In that case there is something occurring in the fiction that corresponds to the "precision wording" requirement that has been imposed. But this is what makes me ask whether or not the NPC purchaser had a ring of X-ray vision. If not, how did he see inside the sack without the ranger also getting to see?) [/QUOTE]

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