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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 7333823" data-attributes="member: 6785785">Okay, thanks for clarifying. I think what you're describing is pretty common, sure. I don't think that it is inherently bad, and at least in my case, it's not something the GM does alone; my group tends to determine a lot of these details together. I think what you're describing falls into the category of worldbuilding, but there are many other things that also fall into that category which don't fit the description. I don't like limiting player choice in character generation. Not unless there is a really compelling reason. And most of the reasons typically offered in such discussions here I would not call compelling. I think the GM should work with the players to try and incorporate whatever ideas they're trying to bring to the table. I see your point how a GM can use his authorship of the setting details to limit player choice, but I don't think it need be so. As for the example, I don't know if I entirely agree with your assessment. I understand it, and I can see why you may not like it, but the choice of words you choose to describe it seems off to me. In that scenario, the PC searching the study has not failed. He has successfully searched the study and determined that the map is not there. I don't see this as the Gm preventing the player's success in the way that you seem to. I do agree this is a case of the GM's authorship taking priority over the player's attempt to establish world details....but I don't think that is a problem in this case. As I mentioned above, I can see it being a problem in other areas, but details such as the location of an item being searched for seem to me to be safely in the hands of the GM. As a GM I'm far more interested in a player contributing to the shared fiction through character actions and relationships and desires, and how all those things can impact worldbulding, rather than in a player trying to author a solution to a problem they are facing. So here you mean things like the GM deciding this is going to be a court intrigue based game in a D&D style setting meaning that the player who wanted to be a barbarian is kind of SOL, right? I pretty much agree....I think that any such constraints are probably best established by the group beforehand. Or at the very least, the GM can share his intentions with the players and get their buy in. This can be the case, sure. The GM can guide things towards the outcomes he wants. Or less severely, he can nudge a bit here and there. Again, I don't think this needs to be the case. And at times, I don't think it's bad when it does happen. Sure, it is common. I've played in games like it quite a bit. Most of the games I've played in have had at least some element of it. My current game that I DM certainly does. The difference is that I don't think I as the GM wield my secret knowledge like a club to bash the players with. I establish elements of the games that I think will be compelling. I don't do it simply to thwart my players and any ideas that they may have. I'd say that these are techniques to help establish a setting. A small but important distinction, I think. Because the setting is largely decided when you picked a game. Traveller has many elements already determined. Same with AD&D and the random dungeon. Sure, there are big pieces missing that you fill in, and you prefer to fill them in as you go based on how the play has gone...but the bones are already there. I'm all for character generation determining major elements of the game. I think the setting should help shape the characters, and then the characters should help shape the action. I do have a good deal of secret history in my campaign. And yes, the PCs do come across bits of lore here and there that is slowly revealing he big picture. But I don't use this story to force them down specific paths. I generally don't use discovering the secret history the goal of their actions....they generally determine what they're doing and why, and then they learn some crazy things along the way. The players add just as much to the world as I do.For instance, one player came up with an idea for a Fighter character. This was our first delve into 5E, so he kept the character simple. As we played, he slowly began to develop a history for the character. He had been in a mercenary company prior to joining the party. He'd left because the mercenary company had started to take on contracts that he found to be loathsome. He had befriended one of the other PCs with a military background when they had fought on the same side of a conflict. So, totally separate of my pre-conceived GM backstory, the player introduced the idea of this mercenary company. I ran with that and it's become a major part of our campaign. I altered many of my ideas to fit with the idea of this mercenary company. There are similar elements in the campaign from nearly all my players (one player is pretty much along for the ride and is fine with that). It's very collaborative in that sense. Do my ideas sometimes trump the players? Perhaps a bit. But I would say their ideas trump mine more often. It's pretty give and take. Are they? It sounds to me like you used the setting elements that already existed to establish new elements. Planet A is rich in Z, so it makes sense that Z can be found there. A already existed, Z was a common sense call. When you comment on the worst version of GM backstory boiling down to the Gm reading a story to the players...is that all that different from the GM reading the results of rolls on random tables to the players? I know that's now what you're doing...I expect there is a lot more to it than that, even beyond what you've described. But maybe there is also more to what the GM has done with his secret worldbuilding? Maybe it's not him just reading his story and feeling proud when his players say wow that's cool? I don't see how some elements of the shared fiction are not established before hand. I feel it is fundamentally required. But I do get your contention with the playstyle in general, especially given how you have described it. I think perhaps we agree much more than it may seem. If I had to boil it down to one major difference, I suppose it would be that I don't think the GM having written anything down beforehand means he cannot be flexible, and that his game cannot be collaborative.</blockquote>

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