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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8237571" data-attributes="member: 42582">In the real world I don't learn about things by making up stories about them. Nor do I learn about things by having someone lese tell me a story that they made up about those things.I have bolded the bit I don't agree with. It's not true that the character does not know anything about that person. To elaborate via an example: if the person is the resident of my PC's home town, then almost certainly my PC knows a great deal about that person. Unless my PC has amnesia, that will include recalling whether we were on good or bad terms last time we met.It's true that, at that point, the player may not know anything about that NPC. But now the question is: who gets to decide what it is that the character knows? You seem to think it's more immersive if the GM tells you. To me, that is radically non-immersive because it makes me feel like my PC is an amnesiac space alien.It's also true that when I author fiction about what/who my PC is seeing, my character is not him-/herself engaged in any act of authorship. My authorship as a player correlates to my character's recollection of his/her memories. When in your game you listen to the GM tell you something that s/he authored about the NPC or other thing your PC is seeing, your character is not him-/herself engaged in a process of listening and learning. Your listening and learning as a player correlates to your character's recollection of his/her memories.Authoring is obviously only a rough correlate to remembering. Likewise listening and learning is only a rough correlate to remembering. You prefer the second. I prefer the first. I don't accept that yours is "in character" in a way that mine is not. Just like remembering, authoring is something that happens inside me. It is immersive in that fashion. Whereas listening and learning is a process of having knowledge come into me from outside, which is not what remembering is like at all. That is why I find it dissociating rather than immersive. What it has in common with remembering is that it is not an "active" creative process. I imagine it is that commonality that makes you prefer it.I have tried to describe the difference in some detail above.This is a completely different thing for me from the above, because now we're talking not just about PC memories but about social practices, theological beliefs, etc. The established things you're referring to are, I assume, the GM's notes. For my part I don't see any reason to favour the GM's invention over that of the player, unless there is some direct intersection with the current situation in play (eg if the PCs are about to sneak into the evil high priest's manse, having the player at that point just invent the evil high priest's religious practices might be out of bounds - they'd at least have to succeed on a Religion check).</blockquote>

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