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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7345639" data-attributes="member: 42582">You said this &quot;Your players are simply drinking larger helpings from the broth you have already prepared: Vecna being a real force within the gameworld (as opposed to an existential plot device) and the things she wants to do.&quot;As I said, I don't know exactly what it means, but my point is that I didn't prepare the broth.Here's another bit of your post: &quot;My only caveat was that the base world is initially presented by the DM, who therefore retains primary authorship over what is or isn't possible. IE: if Vecna did not exist in your campaign world, then her mission to conquer Rel Astra would not exist, and therefore players could not make the choice to ally with her in that endevour.&quot;As I indicated (or tried to) in my reply to your post, that is completely backwards. &quot;Vecna is not the big deal here.&quot; Vecna wouldn't have featured as a significant part of the gameworld but for there being a player whose PC had a goal of world domination. Vecna's mission to conquer Rel Astra wouldn't have been authored, by me as GM, but for the fact that it generated pressure on these two PCs (and, thereby, their players).It's not like I had all this backstory involving Vecna, and the Great Kingdom, and plots to conquer Rel Astra, etc - my broth - and the players started drinking from it. My players had their PCs - their broth - and I introduced all this stuff into the fiction that spoke to their PCs - I was drinking from their broth.Now if you think I've misunderstood your metaphor, well maybe I have. But you're going to have to give it to me literally. Because at the moment I don't think I'm misunderstanding you. I think you're misunderstanding the actual dynamic of the episode of play that I described, and are making mistaken assumptions about the causal relationship between &quot;world building&quot; and player choices.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7345639, member: 42582"] You said this "Your players are simply drinking larger helpings from the broth you have already prepared: Vecna being a real force within the gameworld (as opposed to an existential plot device) and the things she wants to do." As I said, I don't know exactly what it means, but my point is that [I]I[/I] didn't prepare the broth. Here's another bit of your post: "My only caveat was that the base world is initially presented by the DM, who therefore retains primary authorship over what is or isn't possible. IE: if Vecna did not exist in your campaign world, then her mission to conquer Rel Astra would not exist, and therefore players could not make the choice to ally with her in that endevour." As I indicated (or tried to) in my reply to your post, that is completely backwards. "Vecna is not the big deal here." Vecna wouldn't have featured as a significant part of the gameworld [I]but for[/i] there being a player whose PC had a goal of world domination. Vecna's mission to conquer Rel Astra wouldn't have been authored, by me as GM, [I]but for[/I] the fact that it generated pressure on these two PCs (and, thereby, their players). It's not like I had all this backstory involving Vecna, and the Great Kingdom, and plots to conquer Rel Astra, etc - my broth - and the players started drinking from it. My players had their PCs - [I]their broth[/I] - and I introduced all this stuff into the fiction that spoke to their PCs - [I]I was drinking from their broth[/I]. Now if you think I've misunderstood your metaphor, well maybe I have. But you're going to have to give it to me literally. Because at the moment I don't think I'm misunderstanding you. I think you're misunderstanding the actual dynamic of the episode of play that I described, and are making mistaken assumptions about the causal relationship between "world building" and player choices. [/QUOTE]

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