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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7344818" data-attributes="member: 29398">The difference is this: as a consumer of Sir ACD's fiction I have no control at all over what Sherlock Holmes does next or how he reacts to a given situation; but as a consumer of the fiction presented in the game I do have control over what my PC does next or how she reacts to a given situation.Yes, as directed by Sir ACD and narrated within the book.Yes.  Were this to happen in an RPG rather than a novel then NPC Watson says "Hello" (as directed and narrated by the DM, his player) and I-as-Holmes might reply, or moodily ignore him, or launch into a tirade, whatever...as directed and narrated by me as his player.That's one of the big differences between playing an RPG and reading a novel - an RPG has multiple people including the end consumer controlling the characters and to some extent the story being told, while a novel (usually) only has one person controlling who is almost certainly not the end consumer.But take careful note: while the end consumers (the players) have some control over the story they do not have much if any control over the setting or backdrop against which that story takes place (and in the case of a real-world-based RPG, neither does the DM).  So if Holmes and Watson are having a conversation while on a train from London to Oxford neither a player nor the DM can reasonably narrate either of them looking out the train's window and seeing the Portsmouth docks go by.In a more traditional RPG situation, the players have control over the story that gets played through based on the in-game choices they make via their PCs but they don't have control over the land they're in having a culture and climate vaguely resembling that of ancient Greece.No it doesn't, as the DM is doing the same thing for the NPCs.  Watson's character as narrated should in theory come across as the same to a hypothetical observer and be bound by the same game mechanics, rules and processes whether he's a DM-run NPC or a player's PC.Lanefan</blockquote>

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