Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7603087" data-attributes="member: 42582">This seems to point towards dysfunctionality at the table.Also, what does trusting the DM to tell a good story have to do with anything? When did D&D referees become storytellers?!Also also, there's this undercurrent in the thread that the player, by establishing that the guard is his/her PC's friend Frances, is somehow "cheating" or unfairly/improperly subverting a challenge. As if the number of challenges available for RPGing purposes is finite, so that the players are getting a freebie here. If the player would rather play I meet Frances for the first time in 10 years - I wonder what's up with her? rather than Persuade guard number N to let us through the gate, then isn't that in itself a reason to run with it? I don't think there's anything in the 5e rules that is opposed to the suggestion that challenges and quests should follow player interests.Metaphors are tricky things - but I suspect my approach to the GM's role in RPGing is a bit different from yours. And I wouldn't try and use a "secret" that a player already knows.But the idea that there might be some fiction that isn't yet known to the players (or their PCs) is certainly acceptable to me. (Often it mightn't be known to the GM either.)I agree with this. When players establish what their PCs think and believe, but the GM is free to establish the fiction independent of this, then the outcomes you describe are possible. My own preferred approach is to democratise establishing the salient bits of backstory, and - as a GM - to regard myself as constrained by fiction that the players establish, and - conversely - where I don't want to be constrained, advise them either (i) what the truth is that their PCs are aware of, or (ii) inform them that their PCs are ignorant.Sometimes this unfolds within the context of action declaration, but often it doesn't. For instance, the players may be discussing among themselves (in character, or perhaps drifting in and out of character) what they should do (eg should they ally with X against Y?). A player may state a reason such as Well, X occupies such-and-such a role in the imperial government, and Y is in such-and-such an organisation that has such-and-such connection to it. If such a statement contradicts an established bit of fiction which the character knows but (eg) the player has forgotten, or has become confused about (eg s/he confused two countries in her note-taking) then often I will intervene to correct the factual misapprehension. Or, if such a statement extrapolates from the established fiction in a way that fits with what the character might be expected to know (eg the PC is a noble, and it makes sense that nobles would understand these relationships that arise among government bureaus and officials), then I am likely to accept the statement as establishing truth about the fiction.And if such a statement deals with something that the PC clearly couldn't know, then I may point that out. Are you a member of the Imperial Scout Corps? No? Then how do you know what they do in their secret initiation rituals? (Depending on system, the proper response might be to call for a knowledge check. But sometimes stipulation can be the right response.) There can be a range of reasons for taking this approach. One might be to save a big reveal - though I don't normally do that myself. Another might be because the ignorance is part of what establishes the tension in the situation (eg in my 4e game, there was no way I was going to let any player start with a PC who knows the name of the Raven Queen - that is something that has to be, and was, acquired in the course of play). Another might be because, as GM, I want the game to stay focused on this thing rather than that thing, and I'm pretty confident that I can engage the players better with this thing rather than that thing, and so am not interested in throwaway knowledge checks derailing that. (This last is another thing that is system-dependent; what I'm describing here works better in 4e D&D, I think, or Classic Traveller, than in Burning Wheel or Cortex+ Heroic.) I'm also happy with the "metagaming" this can lead to - if the players can see that I've got nothing interesting to offer in response to some or other desire to know a thing, but do have this other interesting thing to offer that's in the current neighbourhood of play, that helps keep us on the same page as to where the action is.This is another example where I think I'm not wildly different from you. If the player is wrong about the vulnerability, and hence is imputing an irrational motivation to his/her PC, I'm happy to point that out. Of course if the player is making a guess then that's what the player is doing too, which is fine. If the player is guessing but believes that his/her PC might know, then we can turn to the system to find out how (if at all) this player/character gap might be traversed.Anyway, doing things the way I describe in this post hasn't caused me any headaches that I can recall. And in a game in which the motivations and "inner lives" of the characters are meant to matter, it helps avoid the "delusional/alienated PC" issue that you identify.</blockquote>

Verification