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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7333713" data-attributes="member: 29398">This is what I just can't fathom, and why I refer to Schroedinger's maps. Player: &quot;I open the door and look beyond it.&nbsp; What do I see?&quot;DM: &quot;What are you looking for?&quot;Player: &quot;I'll tell you what I'm looking for once you tell me what I'm looking at.&quot;Translation: the player can't say what she's looking for until the DM tells her at least the basics of what she can already see.&nbsp; If the door leads outside to daylight, for example, the answer to &quot;what are you looking for?&quot; is likely to be quite different than if the door leads to a library full of books; or a staircase leading down; or an abandoned larder full of rotting meat and fruit; or a brick wall.Now a DM can always make this up on the fly, but there's inherent risks involved.&nbsp; If she decides that behind the door is an old larder full of rotting food the obvious response from the players is &quot;We should have been able to smell that&quot;, leading to either a retcon (absolutely unacceptable) or some quick backpedalling by the DM.&nbsp; Or - and this is the sort of thing I always end up doing if I try to make stuff like this up on the fly - I'll have said earlier when the party was still outside that the structure appears to be about 20' high, but now hours or even sessions later when they enter a room and I'm asked &quot;what do I see&quot; I'll forget what I said before and narrate a 25' high room with a spiral staircase leading up through the ceiling to what looks like another room above!&nbsp; And quite rightly a player will call me on this; as it's horrible DMing.Overt knock-on effects are just that - overt, meaning obvious - and can (and should) be narrated and-or dealt with at the time.&nbsp; But I'm talking about covert knock-on effects - things that happen that the PCs (and thus players) don't know about until later, if ever at all.&nbsp; A real-life example: someone I used to work with was out driving one afternoon until for no immediately obvious reason he got chased down and pulled over by three cop cars.&nbsp; Turned out he'd hit a cyclist some miles earlier (no lasting harm done) and someone had caught his plate number.&nbsp; He never saw the cyclist at the time, never heard any impact, and carried on his way oblivious to the effects of his simple action of turning at an intersection.Sometimes you don't realize what your actions have caused or led to until much later.&nbsp; The only way this can be reflected in a game setting is if someone (and by someone I mean the DM) can connect the dots between action A now and result B tomorrow.Lanefan</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 7333713, member: 29398"] This is what I just can't fathom, and why I refer to Schroedinger's maps. Player: "I open the door and look beyond it. What do I see?" DM: "What are you looking for?" Player: "I'll tell you what I'm looking for once you tell me what I'm looking [I]at[/I]." Translation: the player can't say what she's looking for until the DM tells her at least the basics of what she can already see. If the door leads outside to daylight, for example, the answer to "what are you looking for?" is likely to be quite different than if the door leads to a library full of books; or a staircase leading down; or an abandoned larder full of rotting meat and fruit; or a brick wall. Now a DM can always make this up on the fly, but there's inherent risks involved. If she decides that behind the door is an old larder full of rotting food the obvious response from the players is "We should have been able to smell that", leading to either a retcon (absolutely unacceptable) or some quick backpedalling by the DM. Or - [I]and this is the sort of thing I always end up doing if I try to make stuff like this up on the fly[/I] - I'll have said earlier when the party was still outside that the structure appears to be about 20' high, but now hours or even sessions later when they enter a room and I'm asked "what do I see" I'll forget what I said before and narrate a 25' high room with a spiral staircase leading up through the ceiling to what looks like another room above! And quite rightly a player will call me on this; as it's horrible DMing. Overt knock-on effects are just that - overt, meaning obvious - and can (and should) be narrated and-or dealt with at the time. But I'm talking about covert knock-on effects - things that happen that the PCs (and thus players) don't know about until later, if ever at all. A real-life example: someone I used to work with was out driving one afternoon until for no immediately obvious reason he got chased down and pulled over by three cop cars. Turned out he'd hit a cyclist some miles earlier (no lasting harm done) and someone had caught his plate number. He never saw the cyclist at the time, never heard any impact, and carried on his way oblivious to the effects of his simple action of turning at an intersection. Sometimes you don't realize what your actions have caused or led to until much later. The only way this can be reflected in a game setting is if someone (and by someone I mean the DM) can connect the dots between action A now and result B tomorrow. Lanefan [/QUOTE]

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