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Message: <blockquote data-quote="darkbard" data-source="post: 7732524" data-attributes="member: 1282">The kind of gaming pemerton advocates for has as one of its defining desiderata: "go where the action is." If the players have indicated that the story with which they wish to engage is about the reliquary and they have failed no mechanical checks to keep them from exploring the reliquary directly, why must the GM place an additional obstacle in their path merely for the sake of what you seem to consider verisimilitude? The GM can simply describe the outdoor exploration with appropriate flavor elements and cut directly to the action.Similarly, the players need not engage the size of the bedframes, the quality of the bedding, whether or not there are bedbugs or lice, etc. in the inn at which they rest. The GM simply describes their night's rest and cuts to the next action scene.I work in NYC, the city which I've lived in or around for 18 of the past 22 years. I can tell you from real world experience that even with the familiarity I have, any number of times I have tried to find a restaurant or shop or bar that I remember visiting from weeks or months ago only to find that (1) it's closed since my last visit or (2) I was wrong about the location and it's actually two blocks south of where I thought it was. My point is that absolute, immutable historical accuracy enforced by a map defined to the last pothole is not verismilitudinous in the least in a constantly changing real world, and so trying to enforce such upon your fictional world actually works against what seems to be your goal in verismilitudinous play.Of course it can! And I think this is exactly the largest gulf in your thinking and that of the style of play pemerton advocates. A failed check by the PC establishes the fiction: The PC fails a Diplomacy check (or whatever mechanic serves a similar role in Traveler, the example under consideration); the DM adjudicates that the reason for failure is because the diplomat with whom the PCs are working is actually a mole for the bioterrorists (or whatever the plot is). In your example of play, with secret backstory determining the result of checks rather than checks determining the backstory, how would you explain the PCs succeeding at a Diplomacy check against an opponent who is secretly working against the goals of the PCs? Does it require you to change your hidden backstory? And if so, what purpose does it serve to have this backstory predetermined if it's mutable?</blockquote>

Verification