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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7333959" data-attributes="member: 29398">Yes, you imagine what that person is seeing: an alternate (imaginary) reality.  What's so hard about that?Yes, but in the opposite way to that which you intend, I think. <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=":)" />...and in the game world... Exactly the same as what happens in the game world, as seen/known/experienced by the PCs there.This describes what goes on for the people at the table but does not at all describe what goes on for the PCs in the game world, which is the basis for what I've been trying to say.After session 0 this social process gets subsumed into the rules and conventions of the game, where said rules detail how the imaginary game-world reality is brought to life.  And for my part the rules and conventions of the game say the map is wherever the DM says it is, and it's up to the PCs to find it.  The DM presents the game world, and the players-as-PCs interact with it as they like.  They could search for the map, they could stop for lunch, they could burn the place down...up to them.  Unless an NPC picks it up and moves it (unlikely, as the PCs have already cleared the place out) the map ain't going anywhere - it is where it is.The problem with the coin-flip model is that it means nothing can be done ahead of time.  You can't foreshadow the map being in the breadbox by having the PCs catch a strange whiff of the smell of baking three days prior if the map's location isn't determined until the search is already underway.  You can't draw out a map of the castle on Friday for your game on Sunday to allow you to better describe it; nor can you plan out the occupants ahead of time.In the case of a novel it sure does; in that if you haven't authored it yet you don't have anything to share with anyone.  That said, LotR really does play out very much like a mid-length D&D campaign; and I bet JRRT had flowcharts and diagrams for who went where and met up with who before he sat down and filled in the details. (1) is always a risk no matter who's doing the authoring or when.  (2) - yes, this happens all the time in all types of fiction, not just RPGs; and the reader/player just has to deal with it and move on.  Not everybody likes that Frodo didn't drop the ring into the lava himself, and that he turned at the very last minute.  Not everybody liked that Ned Stark lost his head at the end of book 1 of SoIaF.  And not everybody likes that the BBEG they thought their PCs had just killed was later seen slinking off into the night, very much alive. OK, fair enough.But by the same token, if you punch me today I might hire someone else to work you over tomorrow; and if the someone else is halfway discreet, though you might suspect the connection between yesterday's punch and today's beating you'll never know for sure.  Hell, for all you know it might have come about because of something you did last week, or last year.(I've bolded the covert knock-on effect here: that I've involved someone else)I play RPGs to get away from pressure, not add to it. <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 something I'm finding in the game I play in right now: we've as a party/company been operating at other people's beck and call (e.g. being heroes, solving large-scale problems, preventing disasters, etc.) for so long we've almost forgotten what it means to work for ourselves.  I'm really REALLY looking forward to a time (which at this point appears to be distressingly far in the future) when we can tell the rest of the world to bugger off, and adventure on our own terms for our own purposes and-or gain...or not adventure at all for a while.True; if they know they're looking for a 25' high room they can largely ignore anything with a lower ceiling (though if they don't search those lower rooms for loot they're missing out!).I think there's a typo here, as you're saying that 4e is the opposite of 4e. ?Yes.  Ahead of time.  The problem with that is writing stuff down in any quantity plays hell with immersion and-or keeping up with what's going on.  My own note-taking during most sessions is minimal at best and nearly non-existent much of the rest of the time - I'm too busy trying to a) run what's already in front of me and b) deal with whatever unexpected stuff the players / PCs are throwing my way.All true, though had the rotten-room been defined ahead of time a roll to notice the smell would have been in order, hm?True; nobody's perfect.  But having it written in advance certainly increases the odds of it being remembered when relevant.Which again would have to have been pre-planned.With only the rarest of exceptions, no retcon is acceptable.  It's not just this one.The two examples you give just point to poor DMing.Yet in the very many ways where it can mirror reality, it should; if only to enhance immersion and give a common easy-to-understand foundation.Not at all.  They're refusing to help you with your worldbuilding, but in no way refusing to play the game. Sure there is.  Exploration works differently than combat, both in a rules sense and in a thematic sense; and to try and conflate the two is a mistake.With very few exceptions, combat involves acting and reacting with someone or something that is in turn acting and reacting with you and whose actions can't necessarily be predicted.  Exploration, on the other hand, involves acting with and reacting to something that is usually much more static: the game world.  If I open the door now for the first time I'm in theory going to see exactly the same scene behind it as if I'd first opened it yesterday or if I wait till tomorrow to open it, barring the actions of living creatures or effects of the passage of time.  It's predictable and stable and consistent, from a meta-view: it's a part of the game world.Thus, it's not my place as a player to author what's behind the door any more than it is my place to author the actions of the orc I'm fighting.  It's my place to open the door and look (i.e. explore) and the DM's place to tell me what I see there.  Otherwise we're into collaborative storytelling, which - while fine in its place - ain't D&D or anything close.Lan-"once upon a time"-efan</blockquote>

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