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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8249049" data-attributes="member: 29398">Yep, and the same can hold true in the game world.Just 'cause something's noted in the player-side setting history doesn't necessarily mean it's true; the discovery of the actual truth (or a different wrong version!) is something I can later mine for adventure ideas if needed.For example: (spoilered in case any of my players wander by)[SPOILER]In the player-side history in my setting, a volcano erupted 90 years ago not far east of the "core" adventuring area, concurrent with some other significant events elsewhere in the region.In the DM-side, that was no volcano.  It was a spaceship crash-landing in the mountains and exploding.  The other concurrent events were pre-planned by the aliens (a.k.a. Mind Flayers) and their on-world allies to coincide with this; with the intent being a near-instant takeover of a large swath of territory (and this could get into a very long story, which I'l leave off for brevity).  It all failed.During the campaign a couple of parties have come closer than they realized to figuring this all out but still haven't put the pieces together, meaning I can still mine some more adventuring out of it as time goes on. <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=":)" />[/SPOILER]Agreed, and this is easy enough to reflect in the setting history as well.A player making up a deity on the fly won't happen here; deities (other than very minor local variants) are something I lock down in advance as I've designed a plug-and-play universal cosmology for use across all my games.  Work done once that never needs doing again - my favourite kind. <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=":)" />Also, I design the setting, in general terms at least, long before any players get involved or I even know who they're going to be.  Thus, if a player/PC wants to say she's from The Barrens but there's no The Barrens on the map, all that tells me is a) she's most likely from somewhere off the map or b) The Barrens is a rather small and insignificant place somewhere on the map.  Which is fine - I don't map out the entire world ahead of time; I tend to stop at the continent and surrounds where the campaign is likely to take place, and leave the rest blank for future use/expansion/etc.What I've found - much to my joy - is that having a DM-side history at least somewhat nailed down can quickly and easily become a near-bottomless mine for adventure and-or story ideas, should I need them.</blockquote>

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