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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7377048" data-attributes="member: 42582">How are the chances set? Not by the player, as best I can tell. You are deciding whether or not to say no. You are setting the chance. The player is just waiting to be told.You, as GM, have to choose what the lie is about. You decide that the NPC is untrustworthy. Etc.It's not a distraction. It's the whole point.When you or [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] tell the players that their PCs are at an intersection, or stumble on a raised flagstone, or whatever else is part of you "neutral" framing, all you are doing is choosing (as a GM) to make some details salient. When I tell the player that his PC is at a bazaar where a peddler has an angel feather for sale, I am also choosing (as a GM) to make some details salient. The difference is that you have chosen something that you think is interesting/engaging; whereas I have chosen something that (given the player's signals) I know the player will find engaging/interesting.You are choosing whether or not to mention a raised flagstone. Whether or not to mention an intersection. Whether or not to mention a bazaar. Both of us are choosing what to mention to the players.It's just that I'm choosing on the basis of the evinced dramatic needs of the PCs."Stopping at the intersection" isn't a rational world, any more than is one which mentions every flagstone on the floor of the tavern, and every splinter on its wooden stairs. It's just one where the GM is indulging some taste for that particular detail.I can tell you that if my players want intersections, or flagstone, they're very capable of letting me know!This is just the same point. You think not mentioning the flagstone is not railroading. Why not? You're depriving your players of the chance to study them, assay them, excavate them, fireball them, etc.But obviously that's ridiculous. These aren't real worlds. They have no objective existence, waiting to be explored. They're fictions, which the players encounter because the GMs tell them to them. Telling the players stuff that they have signalled will be interesting to them is not depriving choices anymore than telling them "neutral" stuff. It's just (in my experience) more exciting!</blockquote>

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