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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7604228" data-attributes="member: 4937">So we've reached the point where this is claimed to be a rational series of steps:a) Player decides to have his PC gas-light an NPC.b) Player declares that the false to facts belief of the PC with respect to the environment is something the PC actually believes.c) Therefore either the PC is correct and the environment retroactively conforms to the PC's belief, or else the GM is playing the player's character?This is at the point where if I were the GM, and something like this happened, I'd conclude that the player - not the character, but the player - was insane.Somehow we've gone from, &quot;The GM can't tell the player what the PC thinks.&quot; to &quot;The PC can tell the GM what the setting is because the PC's thoughts are invariably true to facts.&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;My character believes this&quot; is something that the player can declare.&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;My character believes this, and therefore it is true.&quot; is not something the player can declare, least of all when such a declaration contravenes established fact.&nbsp;&nbsp; We've recreated the &quot;I've shot you!&nbsp; No you missed!&quot; problem of a playground Make Believe games, only this time no rules process can possibly resolve the one-up-manship of this process of play because we have no way of establishing any of the facts upon which rules processes depend.&nbsp;&nbsp; Like the game of playground make believe, either the participants must yield to the most stubborn participant or the game cannot continue.&nbsp;&nbsp; Any game played according to this process of play would not long endure, because at most it can support the aesthetic goals of a single participant - the player who insists his right to play his character extends to the right to describe the setting as well.&nbsp;&nbsp; And as long as we are supposedly discussing what it means for a game to have &quot;challenge&quot;, this game cannot support the pillar of &quot;challenge&quot; even for that player, since the player has fiat authority and can basically declare &quot;checkmate&quot; regardless of the board position because he can arrange the board position without respect to any rules process.Furthermore, this example doesn't even have the thin tissue of rules lawyering that supposedly justified the example with the guard.&nbsp;&nbsp; In no way can the player claim that the Chamberlain's smelliness was in some fashion part of the player's backstory, and if through some twisted logic he can, then he can claim the entire setting belongs to the player through the same set of steps.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7604228, member: 4937"] So we've reached the point where this is claimed to be a rational series of steps: a) Player decides to have his PC gas-light an NPC. b) Player declares that the false to facts belief of the PC with respect to the environment is something the PC actually believes. c) Therefore either the PC is correct and the environment retroactively conforms to the PC's belief, or else the GM is playing the player's character? This is at the point where if I were the GM, and something like this happened, I'd conclude that the player - not the character, but the player - was insane. Somehow we've gone from, "The GM can't tell the player what the PC thinks." to "The PC can tell the GM what the setting is because the PC's thoughts are invariably true to facts." "My character believes this" is something that the player can declare. "My character believes this, and therefore it is true." is not something the player can declare, least of all when such a declaration contravenes established fact. We've recreated the "I've shot you! No you missed!" problem of a playground Make Believe games, only this time no rules process can possibly resolve the one-up-manship of this process of play because we have no way of establishing any of the facts upon which rules processes depend. Like the game of playground make believe, either the participants must yield to the most stubborn participant or the game cannot continue. Any game played according to this process of play would not long endure, because at most it can support the aesthetic goals of a single participant - the player who insists his right to play his character extends to the right to describe the setting as well. And as long as we are supposedly discussing what it means for a game to have "challenge", this game cannot support the pillar of "challenge" even for that player, since the player has fiat authority and can basically declare "checkmate" regardless of the board position because he can arrange the board position without respect to any rules process. Furthermore, this example doesn't even have the thin tissue of rules lawyering that supposedly justified the example with the guard. In no way can the player claim that the Chamberlain's smelliness was in some fashion part of the player's backstory, and if through some twisted logic he can, then he can claim the entire setting belongs to the player through the same set of steps. [/QUOTE]

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