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Message: <blockquote data-quote="chaochou" data-source="post: 7336394" data-attributes="member: 99817">There's a little more finesse to it, although largely my experience bears this out.If you take a group of players who have been in a game with complete GM control and give them momentary power - often they will narrate their way out of trouble.So the fear that players will narrate their way out of trouble is almost a surefire indication of a table in which the players are routinely powerless.It also belies a lack of understanding of how games like those run by myself @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=42582" target="_blank">pemerton</a> @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=6696971" target="_blank">Manbearcat</a> @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?82106-AbdulAlhazred" target="_blank">AbdulAlhazred</a> and others actually work. I don't believe any of us hand over carte blanche 'narration' rights to a player. Pemerton certainly doesn't.All of us, though, are willing to let action resolution mechanics determine the outcomes of player decisions, such that a player stating: 'I search the study for the map' results in 'Okay, what skill are you using? Let's roll the dice' and on a success they find the map. Maybe the map says more than they bargained for. Or they miss the roll and find something far less agreeable.I will be very open in allowing players to describe things, places, people, events that their characters know better than me, but often by asking questions to focus them on producing fiction which will move play forward.So I'll say: "So how do you know Chauncy over in the Pits?"... (player answer)And then I might ask: "So when was the last time you saw him?"... (player answer)And then: "So how come he was threatening to kill you that time?"... (player answer)And right there you have a player-authored kicker - a situation they need to deal with. Or the player might decline and say "Are you crazy? He doesn't want to kill me! He wants me to kill someone else!" or"He had to say that to save face with the biker gang at the Pits. They're always at each other's throats."Powerful, driving questions are a very good way to create a vivid and living, breathing world which (unlike secret ones on stacks of notepaper) have the full investment of the players.Those players who try to avoid such questions or to leverage a perceived 'advantage' in some way just find they've undercut their own fun and purpose of play. I find that by not correcting them, they learn to correct themselves.One of the weaknesses of GM controlled play is that it breeds constant enforcement and policing. Once there are no rails and the players understand that their fun comes from the challenge, tension and drama in each new situation, I find they actively drive towards conflict.</blockquote>

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