Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7599887" data-attributes="member: 16814">I get what you're aiming at here, I just question why you're doing so, or maybe why you're coming at the issue so obliquely.&nbsp; 5e is not a system that can provide your preferred experience, although some pieces of it do well.&nbsp; Now that I see what you were aiming at with your example I think there's some daylight between being able to &quot;control what the PC thinks and does&quot; and your example.&nbsp; Fundamentally, this is on whether the thoughts and deeds of the PC are able to determine game fiction outside the character.&nbsp; In 5e, this is (baseline) untrue.&nbsp; The player is free to declare they think they know the guard and act accordingly, but the GM has no obligation to agree about the fictional state of the guard.This last is the important distinction.&nbsp; Being able to determine what your PC does and thinks doesn't extend to establishing new functional avenues to current challenges.&nbsp; Let's contrast your guard example with the troll example.&nbsp; In the troll example, the player establishes the PC's uncle told the PC about trolls' weakness to fire.&nbsp; This is to &quot;justify* doing so within the fiction.&nbsp; But, the ability to use fire on the troll isn't causally tied to this bit of fiction.&nbsp; This fiction does not enable previously unavailable actions.&nbsp; Your guard example, though, does establish new actions that weren't available before the introduction. The player is now trying to establish fiction in the current gameworld to enable new casual paths to overcome the immediate obstacle.&nbsp; This isn't allowed in 5e -- it's outside the player's narrative authority because the player is now describing elements of the scene alongside their actions.A 5e GM is free to allow this kind of play, but [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION]'s injuction about smoothness of play comes in.&nbsp; 5e has no mechanical systems or support for this kind of play, so it's entirely on the GM's continued approval and the table conventions.&nbsp; Perhaps this works well, but any such ad hoc system is likely to have more pain points related to it's ad hoc nature. In other words, absent mechanical reinforcement of this play in the system, exercising it is as reliant on GM approval as what you'd replace with it. Still can be an awesome game, though.That said, I'm pretty loose with player introductions in 5e because I strive to use my GM &quot;no&quot; as rarely as possible.&nbsp; Still, there's a limit in play and an understanding at our table because there are no mechanics available to resolve a conflict.&nbsp; This is different when we play Blades, as there are those systems in play.&nbsp; I clearly notice, though, that my overhead in running 5e is much higher than in Blades because I have to do more heavy lifting on the content side AND be careful to maintain &quot;fairness&quot; with that content.&nbsp; In Blades, I just have to GM within the clear constraints and don't have to worry too much about &quot;fairness&quot; at all.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 7599887, member: 16814"] I get what you're aiming at here, I just question why you're doing so, or maybe why you're coming at the issue so obliquely. 5e is not a system that can provide your preferred experience, although some pieces of it do well. Now that I see what you were aiming at with your example I think there's some daylight between being able to "control what the PC thinks and does" and your example. Fundamentally, this is on whether the thoughts and deeds of the PC are able to determine game fiction outside the character. In 5e, this is (baseline) untrue. The player is free to declare they think they know the guard and act accordingly, but the GM has no obligation to agree about the fictional state [i]of the guard[/i]. This last is the important distinction. Being able to determine what your PC does and thinks doesn't extend to establishing new functional avenues to current challenges. Let's contrast your guard example with the troll example. In the troll example, the player establishes the PC's uncle told the PC about trolls' weakness to fire. This is to "justify* doing so within the fiction. But, the ability to use fire on the troll isn't causally tied to this bit of fiction. This fiction does not enable previously unavailable actions. Your guard example, though, does establish new actions that weren't available before the introduction. The player is now trying to establish fiction in the current gameworld to enable new casual paths to overcome the immediate obstacle. This isn't allowed in 5e -- it's outside the player's narrative authority because the player is now describing elements of the scene alongside their actions. A 5e GM is free to allow this kind of play, but [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION]'s injuction about smoothness of play comes in. 5e has no mechanical systems or support for this kind of play, so it's entirely on the GM's continued approval and the table conventions. Perhaps this works well, but any such ad hoc system is likely to have more pain points related to it's ad hoc nature. In other words, absent mechanical reinforcement of this play in the system, exercising it is as reliant on GM approval as what you'd replace with it. Still can be an awesome game, though. That said, I'm pretty loose with player introductions in 5e because I strive to use my GM "no" as rarely as possible. Still, there's a limit in play and an understanding at our table because there are no mechanics available to resolve a conflict. This is different when we play Blades, as there are those systems in play. I clearly notice, though, that my overhead in running 5e is much higher than in Blades because I have to do more heavy lifting on the content side AND be careful to maintain "fairness" with that content. In Blades, I just have to GM within the clear constraints and don't have to worry too much about "fairness" at all. [/QUOTE]

Verification