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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9084838" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I intend to get some sleep, so I have other things to reply to for later, but this one's quick.That's a reason to do something you wouldn't do for yourself. But it's still what you want to do. Because, in this case, it turns out that making your players happy is what you want to do.Which is why I am harping on this point so much. Whatever happens is because it's what the GM wants to do.So that means, if the GM is shutting players down....what are we to conclude from that? This is why I advocate for something like, "Keep logic in mind, but do the absolute most you can." Whereas the constant. Incessant. Never-ending. Dogged. Insistence. that the GM always has an out to say no, always has a good reason, always knows best, always can say "it's not guaranteed," etc., etc., etc.It doesn't feel, at all, like these interpretations are open. It doesn't feel, at all, like these things are welcoming diverse and interesting and unexpected player input. It sounds, very much, like this is closed-ended. Like unless the player hews extremely closely to what the GM expects, they aren't gonna get anything. Despite the 5e Background features in question being very broadly worded, by intent, they get interpreted in extremely narrow ways. "Local nobilty" is presumed to be only the ones who rule over your home area, not the much more natural (and clearly intended) "the low-level, local nobility of wherever you happen to be." It explicitly says that if you go somewhere, people presume that you have a good reason to be there. Etc. These things are quite clear that they are broad, but they always, always get chipped down, further and further, until they're little more than suggestions--and just as casually dismissed.</blockquote>

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