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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 7336218" data-attributes="member: 6785785">At this point in the campaign, I had four players. Two had detailed histories for their PCs, one had a fair amount, and the fourth was a loose sketch being detailed as we went along (the fighter and ex-mercenary I mentioned earlier). Considering the amount of material I had to draw upon from what they offered, I was reasonably sure I could engage them regardless of which trade route they chose. So the way I see it, the players were actively looking to expand their business. So any pursuit of establishing a new trade route would be going where the action is. The fact that I could use their established history to add to events, or to complicate events is preferable to me and my way of DMing. The desires of the PCs (and by extension the intent of the players) is very much the focus in our game. And I do like to put hard choices before them, where there’s no easy answer. I feel that’s an element of traditional storytelling that transfers well to an RPG. So to expand...the PC with ties to the Shades...they were a bit conflicted. The Shades were responsible for the death of her family, but there was also a Shade who spared her as a child and took her in and helped her learn how to use her powers (she’s a Diviner Wizard). So she very much disliked the Empire of Shade and was angry at the idea of having to cooperate with them, but she did care for her mentor.This created complications for the PCs because the mentor was embroiled in the intrigue that came up. A coulle of different factions within the Shade Empire were vying for dominance, and this possible trade agreement could give one faction an edge. So I authored a lot of the internal situation involving the Shades, which I think would fall into your description of GM driven backstory or secret backstory. However, I set it up as a dynamic situation into which the PCs stroll. How it all played out was entirely up to them and what they tried to do, and the results of the rolls for any associated checks. I don’t know what you would call it based on my description above. I don’t think it is simply a case of “solving the GMs puzzle” because that implies a predetermined success condition that I did not establish, openly nor secretly. So skill/ability checks and their resolution seems closer to what I’m describing. But I don’t know that I handled that exactly as you would have as far as the checks themselves and their results. I used a good deal of judgment to decide what the results of a check would mean in the fiction.</blockquote>

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