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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7604654" data-attributes="member: 4937">I can't speak for any one else, but for my part its because I repeat the same things over and over and they just bounce off.  I have a hard time believing that you aren't at this point able to answer your own questions.   I mean just considering what you've now posted, the answers to your own questions are present if you are willing to see them.   I admit I have weird pet peeves and my social-emotional framework doesn't well align with the rest of the human race, but honestly if you made attacks and cast open aspirations or said "You make me so angry", it would be less frustrating to me and more understandable than what you are doing.I'm going to respond somewhat out of order.  I'm not deliberately trying to misconstrue you in anyway by doing so.  I just want to point out how disconnected from itself your argument becomes as it develops.Ok, let's go with that.  I agree that player's have "absolute authority" over their characters, and as a result that there are things that implies should and should not be true.But what does that "absolute authority" mean?  What does it look like?  When people use the term, what are they saying?   Well, you know the answer for that yourself, because you say it:So you know already well what people meant.  You have no misunderstanding as to what there position is when you decide to "call it out".So how is it that your point of contention is:How is it that when you've well understood that people were saying "players have absolute authority over their character's thoughts and actions" that you've now added to that something of your own invention in order to condemn their position as illogical, namely that the players also have absolute authority over the character's background, and by which you mean something that they never said, that they also have absolute authority to create any background that they like at any time in the game?So why is it surprising that someone who you admit said "players have "absolute authority" over their characters thoughts and actions" should think that absolute authority over their background is a step too far?  And further, in the Francis example, we have gone even one step further past claiming that the player has absolute authority over their background, and are now asserting that the background has absolute authority over the setting.  Why should it even be confusing that someone who only started from the proposition "players have absolute authority over their characters thoughts and actions", should not able to answer your question regarding whether Francis exists in the city?  After all, even if someone did assert that players had absolute authority over their background, that would only mean that the player could assert that Francis existed sometime in the city in the past.  You could not assert on the basis of your authority over background, that now in the present Francis is still alive, still in the city, and still serving in the guard.  All of those things could have changed between the point you asserted Francis had existed and the present moment in game, and regardless of your absolute authority over background you could not decide those things without absolute authority over the setting.   So of course people can't answer your question in any general way or give you any other answer but "Maybe."And remember, these people by your own admission never began by asserting players had absolute authority over their background in the first place.In point of fact, while I've asserted that players do have a sort of absolute authority over their background, I asserted that only in the sense that a player character's background is inviolable.  That is to say, a player may absolutely refuse any other participant's suggestion to alter their background.  A GM cannot force a player to have a backstory they don't want.  A player can say, "Mess with me.  I want to have complications and drama because that's the sort of game I want to play.", and thereby give the GM permission to introduce backstory elements.   But a player can also say, "My backstory is meant only to serve as backstory, and I only want my character to evolve through forestory, and not by making unwanted revelations about his past."   All that is fine, but it is also very different from the assertion that a player has an absolute right to introduce backstory, much less that having introduced backstory, he has some absolute right to insist that present situations conform to his desires and expectations.  Even if the player's relationship to Francis is inviolable and even if their is a table agreement to be "hands off" with respect to Francis, such a social contract does not mean Francis is here now in the present.  The GM, being absolutely in charge of the setting, could say, "This guard isn't Francis.   The Guard says, "So you're a friend of Francis?  Yeah, he has the night watch tonight.  I'm Robert.  We agreed to switch because I'm going to see a lovely little lady tonight at the festival.", or any number of other things.   Francis is after all, an NPC, whether he's in your backstory or not.In point of fact, the GM could say that.  The GM could for example overrule a character whose IC motivation is to kill the other members of the party, or could overrule a character whose concept is that he's working for the bad guys.   I'm not saying a GM should always do that, but it takes an extraordinarily mature group to deal with that in a cooperative fashion.And this is a good segue into the problem of, "If you are saying that a player has absolute authority over their character and the GM has absolute authority over the setting, aren't there going to be issues in a backstory that equally involve both character and setting?  How do you resolve the issue of conflicting desires of two parties with absolute authority?  How can the both have absolute authority in that situation?"   And the answer is the sort of authority both have in that situation is of the inviolable sort.   They both have a right to be obdurate immovable objects.   The GM is under no obligation to accept a backstory that implies setting changes he doesn't want, and the player is under no obligation to accept a backstory that implies character changes he doesn't want.   As neither can force the other to budge, either the status quo prevails or else they negotiate some agreement between each other.In my game, the player writes a background and submits it for approval.  Once I approve it, it becomes real and the implications are adopted into the setting.  Depending on what the player wrote, that can profoundly shape the setting in ways I didn't consider or expect.   But as long as it is reasonable, adds to the setting rather than detracts from it, and doesn't seem to be an attempt to outshine the other players in either participation, authority, or control over the narrative, I'll probably agree.   But I cannot be made to agree, any more than I can write a background for the player and say, "This is you, like it or not."I do not think that, provide we apply "absolute" to the right ideas of what a player or GMs authority is, that it is an improper modifier.   With respect to what we've said is the rights and privileges, those rights and privileges are absolute.  The problem or confusion comes when you start inventing rights and privileges that were never under discussion and then claiming that the modifier implies those rights and privileges.   But that is illogical and uncivil.For example, if I said, "The player has an absolute right to play their character.", and you said, "Well that means that if the character proposes to leap the Atlantic Ocean, you have to allow that regardless of what is on their character sheet, or else you are interfering with their right to play their character.", at most I ought to have to say, "Their character can't leap the Atlantic Ocean.  That isn't the character they agreed to play and/or designed for themselves.  Leaping the Atlantic Ocean isn't part of their character."   If you responded then, "But you said they could play their character any way that they wanted!!!", I'd be inclined to think you weren't serious.</blockquote>

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