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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8227739" data-attributes="member: 29398">First off, thanks for the detailed answer, even if I'm about to debate some of it. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Me too, which is why I play.But note that I specifically say "play" here; as a distinct and separate activity from GMing.  IMO the GM is there in part to facilitate the players being able to find out what happens - or, in many cases, through the actions of their PCs cause what happens.I think there can be the same general amount of creativity for both player and GM, just on different scales (setting-scale vs character-scale, for example) and often with different intentions (a GM sometimes has to create with a view to the long-term future of the game she's running while a player generally can stay more in the moment).Good questions perhaps, but without pre-set answers for the players to work toward they're also IMO not as satisfying to solve.  Were I the GM introducing the pendulum I'd already know what it was for.  Were I a player finding that pendulum I'd be wanting to find out more about it, what it's for, and what it does; all in full awareness in-character that while it might be of vital importance it might also be nothing more than a distraction or delay element to slow us down, make us think, and-or keep us from looking elsewhere until it's too late.From what I remember of this Jabal guy, I think as a player I'd have long ago had my PC do the setting a favour and just shoot him. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  I run a few high-placed less-than-nice NPCs like him in my game - sooner or later I rather hope one of them will annoy one or more PCs to the point where said PCs try to take drastic action.  And who knows, they might even succeed. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />This is good.  It's also something that the post I was replying to seemed to suggest was somehow undesirable.And for this sort of thing, GM notes are invaluable; the sort of notes that say "Barring changes brought on by the PCs, event x will happen on date y".  In the Traveller example, it might go "Barring PC changes or interruptions, an Imperial armada will attack the world of Quohiry on Stardate 1103.65".  This sort of note is ideally made before play even starts, in order to be agnostic regarding the PCs' actual location at the time.  If they happen to be on or near Quohiry on that date then maybe they get caught up in the action.  If not, they'll certainly hear about it later as news spreads through the galaxy.But if the PCs somehow manage to mess up that armada before it leaves spaceport, or pre-learn of the impending attack and warn Quohiry and-or get the Quohirians to launch a pre-emptive attack of their own, then maybe those notes become redundant.  Doesn't bother me in the least.  I'd far rather have notes made redundant than no notes at all and via winging it end up finding I've put the same armada in three places at once. (which is just the sort of screw-up I'm more than capable of!)Yet naturalistic [consequences*] are something else that was strongly frowned on upthread.* - a different word was used but I'm too lazy right now to look for it. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />This all sounds good.  I'm not as formal about the soft-move hard-move sequence, in that there'll be times when danger hits without warning and other times there'll be what looks and acts like a warning but it's unfounded.  An example of the latter might be Indiana Jones noticing a skeleton impaled on a spike in a passage; he takes it as a warning there's traps here and behaves accordingly, not realizing until much later the trap was a one-shot thing and the passage is in fact now quite safe.Thing is, all of the consequences in your examples could just as easily have been based on pre-made notes as on on-the-fly adjudication.</blockquote>

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