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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Shaman" data-source="post: 5086256" data-attributes="member: 26473">I'm leary of using the word 'simulation' on a gaming forum, as it carries a lot of baggage with a certain subset of gamers which may not have anything to do with how I mean it, so let me try to sum up my approach to running a setting like so: the world is what it is and it responds to the players and their characters only as much as they are willing and able, through skill and luck, to influence it.Put another way, it's the players' role to make the world respond to their characters, not the referee's.I fully expect the adventurers to set and pursue goals, but I do nothing to tailor the world or tilt the flow of events toward or away from those goals. Consequences flow from the choices the players make for their characters. If a player decides he wants his character to become the greatest swordsman in France, a master superior of the Academie d'Armes, and found his own fencing school in Paris, then that's awesome and I wish him luck, but I'm not going to change the game to revolve around that adventurer's goals. If the player wants to eke out his character's niche, then he must do so amid the swirling tides of the setting.As a referee I won't do this and as a player I find it very disappointing. I like matching my wits against the referee's schemes, and if the schemes are nothing more than illusions created in response to my own suppositions then I am in fact doing nothing more than chasing my own tail. Of course I'll solve the mystery because I'm the one creating it as I go. Feh on that.If I understand you correctly, your measure of a 'good' or 'successful' game is that players and their characters only face the adversity they choose and their expectations are consistently met by moving the goal in whatever direction they kick the ball, but for me that's pretty much the polar opposite of what I look for as a player, or offer as a referee. Events that are beyond my control challenge my creativity and adaptability; moments of frustration in the course of a game make the achievement of success that much more rewarding.It's up to the players. They make their characters, I'll present them with current events and rumors appropriate to their character backgrounds, and they can figure out what they do next.The adventurers are in a world humming with activity. They need to make themselves a part of that. Join a fencing school. Join a regiment. Become a courtier. Become a knight. Buy an office. Take vows as a priest. Captain a privateer. Spy for the Cardinal. Spy on the Cardinal. Take a mistress. Form a gang. Visit a fair. Visit the theatre. Gamble. Carouse.But please, don't just sit there waiting for me to introduce 'the plot.'If the characters connect with the setting, the setting will respond to them in kind. Push and the world pushes back. That's where adventure is found.And no, I don't leave this to chance. Part of character creation is not only defining the what the character is, but also what she wants to be, and some ideas on how she might go about getting there.</blockquote>

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