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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8228069" data-attributes="member: 29398">Different motivations for GMing, I suppose - I'm in it for the laughs and entertainment both given and received, and any brain-strengthening that happens is purely an accidental side effect. <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 really, really cool.  I like it.That said, there's no way in hell I'd be able to make it work without having some notes ahead of time e.g. "shrine near camp 1, two runaway sisters, will starve or freeze if not found/rescued by PCs but no fault if PCs miss entirely", stuff like that.Why?  Because notes ahead of time serve also as notes after the fact, so when I'm trying to remember a few days later what happened in the game I've at least got that framework to start from.  If I stop to take notes during the run of play my train of thought gets derailed (which doesn't help anyone), and after a few beers I'm not going to remember all the details of anything that complicated or even get them all straight without some sort of notes to go by - unless I'm willing to risk creating in-setting inconsistencies and-or impossibilities through my winging-it getting carried away (e.g. putting the same space armada in three places at once, or in this example saying they could see the shrine from far below as I forget it's supposed to be somewhat discreet or hidden).Put another way, after 35+ years of it I more or less know my GMing limits and am willing to play within them. <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'm a bit confused here - they gave the portraits to a Demon, fine, but before this the Demon didn't exist in the fiction and you collectively had to retcon it in?Surprisingly, perhaps, given the way you wrote them up I think I like the first one better.  It seems more fluid somehow, for lack of a better term; or maybe it's just that the first one deals with smaller-scale events.  I do like how the consequences play out in the Blades example and the possibility of future impact on the PCs and-or what's around them; were it me I'd be making notes right now on what happens next and when (barring PC intervention) so as to codify events and as an aid to memory.I'm of two minds here.  One of those minds says it works well.  The other says that if the GM is grounded enough in the setting the same or similar results could and likely would be achieved without mechanics.  A combination, where the mechanics are "soft" and there to support and-or suggest in cases where the GM is indecisive and-or just can't come up with good ideas, is probably where I'd lean.I wouldn't want it to be hard-coded, in that I-as-GM would want to retain the freedom to either overrule or eschew the mechanics if the results didn't make sense in the fiction and-or I thought I had a better idea.  For example, if it made sense in the established Blades setting that the "Bad Result" consequences would be what happened next I might want to skip the mechanics and jump straight there.  Or, if some other series of consequences made more sense I mught want to go straight there; and in any case I'd probably do some informal rolling to fine-tune the details (e.g. instead of "within 2 days time" it might be "within 1d4 days time" to add some variability; and I'd probably also roll to see what had become of each known member of the nobility by that point e.g. dead, in hiding, aware but no change, unaware, etc.)That said, the whole thing would likely be much more granularly resolved in my game such that things would progress on a day by day or even hour by hour basis depending on what the players/PCs got up to.</blockquote>

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