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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7374394" data-attributes="member: 42582">Yes it is. It establishes that the feather has whatever trait the player was looking for, and that that trait is useful for making stuff that will help you confront balrogs.The contrast would be something that is clearly quite possible in [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s game: the player learns that the feather has such-and-such trait, but it turns out that such-and-such trait is irrelevant for confronting balrogs.By finality I don't mean the end of the story. Or the resolution of the Belief. I mean that the outcome of successful action declaration is fixed, and can't be undone unless the players do something that puts it back into jeopardy. [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] discussed this well upthread in relation to the attempt to become king.Because they put it back into play. They didn't just cross the town to go to the tower; rather, they tried to sneak through the catacombs which (it was already known) were labyrinthine. (I think one of the players wanted a catacombs-wise check for his PC; and the other was happy to try this way of getting into the tower rather than risking the front door.) And so (in the fiction) they got lost, because (at the table) the check failed.This is an instance of what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] called following the fiction where it leads.The point about finality is that the GM has no prerogative to unilaterally undo the success.This is an instance of a lack of finality in resolution, resulting from the fact that the GM is establishing unrevealed backstory elements behind the scenes.Yes, if anyone cares about it. The colour of wolves has never come up in any game I've run (that I can think of), but in my Cortex+ game the size of an ox (ie its giant size) was established as the result of action resolution. On multiple occasions divine guidance has been established via action resolution.Sometimes a player asks but doesn't have a view as to what the answer is. In those situations, they are - in effect - inviting the GM to tell them stuff. At which point, obviously, it is the GM exercising agency over the content of the shared fiction, not the player. Although it is likely the parameters for this exercise of  agency will have been established by the player, as an outcome of action resolution.How do you start a campaign? Do the players narrate the starting situation?I have a lot of trouble making sense of this question. How do the PCs in your game get from the common room of the tavern to their bedrooms upstairs? In the fiction, they step over flagstones and climb every stair. But - again echoing [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] - I assume that you don't play through every such step. Probably everyone at the table agrees that it's bedtime for the PCs, and you then say - in the absence of anything interesting happening overnight - "OK, you wake the next morning."In the BW game, after dealing with the peddler the PCs went to a tavern to eat some lunch and wait for a message from Jabal. We didn't worry about how many blocks it might have been from the bazaar to the tavern. At the tavern they were approached by Athog, Jabal's enforcer, telling them to leave town. When Athog drew his sword, one of the PCs wrestled disarmed him and wrestled him to the ground, and the PCs then went to confront Jabal in his tower. Again, we didn't worry about how many blocks it might have been from the tavern to the tower.Later on in the campaign, when the PCs trekked across the Bright Desert from an oasis with a friendly naga to the Abor-Alz, I pulled out the GH maps and we worked out a number of days. But the actual travel was resolved via an Orienteering check. The distance didn't influence the difficulty of that check, but did influence the difficulty of the Forte checks required to avoid dehydration. Otherwise the number of days required was primarily colour.In my Cortex+ Heroic session on the weekend, the action (continued from our previous session of that particular campaign) started at the house of the Frost Queen. After defeating her, the PCs and the villagers rested the night and then set off the next morning - one PC to the south with the villagers, the rest to the north. The key features of the ensuing situation were established by the scene distinctions: Frightened Villagers, Snow All About, The Giants are Almost Upon You. These are what the players interacted with. The exact number of miles travelled isn't relevant and doesn't need to be worked out. There's no map. We know there are hills, which rise into mountains and glaciers to the north and farmland to the south. That's enough.None of this is very different from saying "We got to sleep, and then when we wake up we . . ." That's mostly colour also.My point is that you can't preauthor if the players are making action declarations of the sort I describe.When the feather turns out to be cursed, what will the PC do? As it turns out, he tries to make contact with Jabal. How can I know in advance that will happen? I can't. So nor can I know that it might (as it did) fail, and hence that I will need an enforcer (Athog) as a fictional element. And then, when the PCs - having bested Athog - go to the tower, how can I know that that will happen? Or what the consequences will be?There is no scope in this sort of game for pre-authoring. Hence the players can tell that things are not pre-authored. Which is contrary to your claim that no one can tell the difference. Which was my point.</blockquote>

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