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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7604336" data-attributes="member: 4937">I think I agree with all of this.  The rope is in the backpack.   That has been established in the fiction by some process of play.   The player has a reasonable expectation that, "I take the rope out of my backpack..." is something that should automatically succeed, and is probably the preamble to some larger proposition like, "And start tying one end around my waist."   The play may expect that in some games, using the rope successfully is something that might be checked, or that the DM may require a full round of searching through his stuff to find the rope.   The player probably doesn't expect, "You don't find the rope."However, I think we both agree that the GM could say, "You don't find the rope.", if the GM has some knowledge of the fictional positioning that the player doesn't, or the player has forgotten that last week he tied the rope to a pillar at the top of the pit the party is now in, and it is logically still back there hanging down the wall.   The GM may know that one of the other players handed the GM a note saying, "I steal the rope from his pack while he's sleeping.", or he may know that the Mite in area #26 stole the rope back when the PC put the backpack down while they were fighting the Steam Mephits, or that the rope was actually an illusion cast by the imp in area #43 and never existed in the first place.  The fact that we both agree that the GM could say this because he has more knowledge of the fictional positioning than the player is proof that the DM controls the fiction outside of the player.  The two say the same thing.   While he may agree that the player's view of the fiction ("the rope is in my backpack") prevails, he is not required to do so.   Ultimately, the player can't force the DM to accept the player's view of the fiction.  The player may insist that he recovered the rope, or that there was no way it could have been stolen, or that he has two ropes - and depending on the persuasiveness of the argument the GM may yield - but the GM is meant to be the judge of what is true here.   If that isn't true for rope, then isn't it true for +5 Vorpal Swords?  Surely a player could validly argue he'd enjoy the game more if his player happened to find a +5 Vorpal Sword is his backpack?  Surely it's easy to imagine a player arguing this find would make the game better for everyone, and the player honestly be arguing in good faith.  The player may even be correct - everyone at this table might enjoy the game better if they were less gritty and playing in a higher tier.   However, ultimately, the GM still runs the game, and if the GM overrules rope or +5 vorpal swords, it's his reasons for doing so that prevail good or bad.  Maybe a player can propose to the table that they play a different game with different assumptions.  They still can't control the setting.These aren't entirely hypothetical examples.  I had a DM friend of mine invite a new college aged player to his game and told him to make a third level character for 1e AD&D.  The player showed up with a third level character (with multiple 18's)... and a +5 vorpal sword, wand of wonder, a ring of elemental command (fire), and a dozen other items on his character sheet.   The player couldn't understand why the DM (or the rest of the players for that matter) weren't affirming his view that his character needed and perforce had these items.   Why couldn't he just select whatever equipment he wanted?  (To make it more ludicrous, this happened after the DM explicitly told the player before hand it was a low-magic gritty campaign.)I don't think that it should be controversial that the player, not my friend the DM, was confused regarding the role of a player in the game, and what was or was not the DM's prerogative.</blockquote>

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