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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7602809" data-attributes="member: 996">All my scars are on the inside.Y'know, it occurs to me that are times when the DM deciding what the PC thinks is the whole point.  Player: I pay attention not just to what he's saying, but to his body language how he's saying it, to try to get a sense of if he's being truthful or not.DM: OK, roll WIS, Insight applies.Player:  9 + 2 +5 that's a 15DM: 16  You think he's probably being truthful.Player: STOP TELLING ME WHAT MY CHARACTER THINKS!Player:  I pull 50' of rope out of my pack and...DM: You find no rope in your pack.Player:  I picked it before play, it's right here on my sheet! DM:  It's not there now.Player:  What happened to it?DM:  I hear a goal, but not a method.Player:  What do I think could have happened to it?DM:  Oh, no, I'm not falling for that again.… that is, the DM controls the environment and the environment could do all sorts of things to your equipment after play begins. But, even if they're conceived that way, and they happen to come up in play, then their condition, what they do, etc, is all described along with the rest of the environment, by the DM.OTOH, there have been (often problematic) 'pet' mechanics that let the player control a class feature that happens to be nominally not a player character.  "the GM controls the environment, the player declares actions, the GM narrates the consequences of action" may not be adequate in all instances, but it's a good, reasonably clear (obviously ambiguous) high-level rule and it still informs instances where it doesn't apply exactly like it sounds.A player controlling an animal companion's actions, fleshing out his background, picking (and describing - which IIRC, is still allowed) his gear, and so forth may not neatly, literally fit that rule on the surface, but they're still compatible with it at some level.  Picking gear, for instance, is just simplified:  you could - and might be required to by some DMs - acquire gear through a series of interactions with the environment - the DM describes the town, you declare you look for chandler, the DM narrates finding one, you declare the goal of acquiring rope & the method of honestly negotiating a fair price with said chandler, the DM narrates you getting ripped off because of the 'gold rush economy,' etc.  At that rate, it should only take a few sessions to get everyone equipped and to the dungeon. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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