Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7340949" data-attributes="member: 29398">Corollary question: where's the line between a DM introducing elements in order to frame a scene and a DM building the world?&nbsp; This also seems to be a rather fuzzy division.Or cheating, depending on how bluntly one wants to put it.&nbsp;&quot;The PCs hire an assassin to poison the king&quot; is an excellent example of my idea from way upthread about &quot;pushing over a domino&quot; and subsequent off-stage results.&nbsp; The difference between this and my earlier not-the-best play example involving the spy-harlot is that here the PCs are very intentionally pushing over the domino to set some events in motion; events which in this case the PCs quite understandably don't want to be involved in or assiciated with if possible.But then what?&nbsp; No matter what system you use, in a case like this it's squarely on the DM to determine how the dominoes fall and-or whether there's any subsequent narratable effects either indirectly (next morning, news of the king's sudden death sweeps the streets of Kerratrim) or directly (next morning a squadron of soldiers shows up at the PCs' inn) affecting the PCs.&quot;We hire an assassin to poison the king&quot; is a large-scale action declaration (most DMs would quite reasonably want to break this down into some smaller-scale details e.g. where are you finding an assassin, what terms are you offering, how does the assassin contact the PCs before-after the job, etc.) that, on a success, means an assassin has been hired to poison the king; and there the involvement of the PCs ends for a while, if not forever (e.g. the PCs set this in motion and then immediately skip town).&nbsp; It doesn't mean the assassin has successfully poisoned the king yet.&nbsp; The DM has to by whatever means play this out either with herself or (and maybe the best if not always most practical option) by having someone else not playing in that game do the rolling etc. for the assassin when the usual players aren't around.In a normal DM-driven game this isn't a problem at all - in fact, it's pretty much business as usual.&nbsp; The question is more one of how would a player-driven system or game handle something like this, where the players/PCs are acting as backroom directors rather than front-line agents?Lan-&quot;sometimes it's nice as a PC to sit back and let someone else do the dying&quot;-efan</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 7340949, member: 29398"] Corollary question: where's the line between a DM introducing elements in order to frame a scene and a DM building the world? This also seems to be a rather fuzzy division. Or cheating, depending on how bluntly one wants to put it. "The PCs hire an assassin to poison the king" is an excellent example of my idea from way upthread about "pushing over a domino" and subsequent off-stage results. The difference between this and my earlier not-the-best play example involving the spy-harlot is that here the PCs are very intentionally pushing over the domino to set some events in motion; events which in this case the PCs quite understandably don't want to be involved in or assiciated with if possible. But then what? No matter what system you use, in a case like this it's squarely on the DM to determine how the dominoes fall and-or whether there's any subsequent narratable effects either indirectly (next morning, news of the king's sudden death sweeps the streets of Kerratrim) or directly (next morning a squadron of soldiers shows up at the PCs' inn) affecting the PCs. "We hire an assassin to poison the king" is a large-scale action declaration (most DMs would quite reasonably want to break this down into some smaller-scale details e.g. where are you finding an assassin, what terms are you offering, how does the assassin contact the PCs before-after the job, etc.) that, on a success, means an assassin has been hired to poison the king; and there the involvement of the PCs ends for a while, if not forever (e.g. the PCs set this in motion and then immediately skip town). It doesn't mean the assassin has successfully poisoned the king yet. The DM has to by whatever means play this out either with herself or (and maybe the best if not always most practical option) by having someone else not playing in that game do the rolling etc. for the assassin when the usual players aren't around. In a normal DM-driven game this isn't a problem at all - in fact, it's pretty much business as usual. The question is more one of how would a player-driven system or game handle something like this, where the players/PCs are acting as backroom directors rather than front-line agents? Lan-"sometimes it's nice as a PC to sit back and let someone else do the dying"-efan [/QUOTE]

Verification