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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 7379181" data-attributes="member: 6778044">First, does "no myth" mean there is no established setting, and it's invented by the players and/or GM as the game progresses?So, when I read this example I'm just reading a railroad, the only real difference from a traditional railroad is that in theory the "plot" came from the character. But I don't think that's a fair assessment either, it's just the way it reads.Examples: How far away is the old man? Have I seen him before? I might not want to go see him. Why do I take the garlic bulbs? What if I don't want to? I'm on horseback and he's on foot, why can't I catch him?Do I have to go with a choice the GM gives (house, tavern)? You say "investigate in some other way." Do I have any restrictions?Did I pass by anything on the way to the house? Were there other houses, people, businesses, etc.? These might have come out in an actual game, but I can't tell. From this description, along with many others, it tends to lead me back to the same thought, and perhaps this is where we differ. As a player I'm interested in the experience. That is, when I go home I want to think back and remember the stuff that happened. I like to feel like I'm in control of my character. That I thought like them, made decisions like them, and took actions as them. I (and the other PCs) are in control of what we do, where we go, etc. within the setting that's presented by the DM. I really don't care how they do that. Published adventure, pre-authored notes, improvised, random determination, fudging rolls, whatever. It literally makes no difference to me. I don't even care if they cleverly manipulated us. If the story of the characters is interesting and we felt like we were acting as our characters, then we're happy. I get the sense that you, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and many others feel the opposite. That the how the GM does all this matters as much, if not more, as the results themselves. That if the GM somehow made a decision that actually turns your "control" into an illusion, that it ruins your experience. I think that's reasonable, but I really don't get it. Why would that be important? The only way that comes to mind is that people treat it as a game. That is, that the game itself is what's important, and it's "played" like any other game. And to me, the game just exists to help us figure out what happens within our game. That is, the rules are guidelines, and can be adjusted as needed to facilitate whatever the story is we're writing. Ironically, I also love game design. I think that a well written rule set does exactly that, without the need for going outside the rules very often. While I don't inherently oppose fudging, illusionism, etc. I also think that it's almost never needed anymore because the rules are so well designed. And we've tweaked many of them for our home campaign too.Anyway, instead of writing out what would happen, I want to collaborate on what does happen. Frame the initial scene for me (perhaps something different than this one), and I'll provide my input on what my PC does and we can see where it leads.You've given my my starting point (although I understand I would have come up with this on my own):The player decides that his goal is to "Find the undead monster which took his sister, and lay her soul to rest!" (yes, I invented that earlier, but it works). So he creates a backstory for his character, from a small town in a backwater area of mountains and forests, filled with superstition and dread of the undead. He lives in house in a small town, and last fall his sister met a mysterious stranger who stayed with the local landlord, who is the family patron. Several people died mysteriously and the sister vanished in the night along with the stranger. The PC made a vow to recover/avenge/lay her to rest, took vows as a priest of the Sun Goddess, and now searches for clues.If I could, I'd rather skip the taking vows as a priest, just to avoid magic and other magic special abilities. So I'd prefer to be a rogue, and perhaps the "less favored" sibling to my parents. Not that they don't love me, but that I'm a bit of a disappointment in my level of success in the world. I'm a bit of a procrastinator, but have a tendency to find a way to get out of the problems that creates for me. I've grown up on the family farm, primarily growing barley, but I'm good at managing to do less work than the others. When I do work, I tend to be "lazy" in the sense that I'll struggle to do something in one trip because it's faster, rather than to do it more easily in two trips. I'm happy to take on any work that clearly has a benefit for me.I prefer to be known as Slant, my sister was Estra. I'm not sure I make the connection between "find the undead monster" and "my sister vanished into the night along with the stranger." What evidence is there that she's dead, much less by an undead monster? Would there be any reason to suspect the stranger to be an undead monster?I'll go with missing, but with recent events in town several people have gone missing recently, and their bodies later found emaciated, their skin leathery and stretched across their bones, as if mummified. My parents are grieving, and feel it's just a matter of time before her body is found, but are too fearful of the old spirits and the sanctity of the dead to question this as being anything but the will of the gods.I don't believe my sister is dead, at least not yet, so my goal is to "find her before she dies a horrible death, or find her killer if she is." I suspect that I would have heard about a stranger if one had been present around the time of the other disappearances or deaths. So I probably wouldn't consider him a prime suspect unless there's some evidence to the contrary. I'm also assuming that she has been gone for more than one day, in that I might not have considered that there was any issue that she was gone in the morning (she tended to get up earlier than me), until my parents asked about her, in which case I would have assumed she went someplace. But if she hadn't returned by that evening we'd start asking around, and after she was gone for maybe two or three days, that we'd start to get very worried. Perhaps by day 5, my parents have decided that there is no hope, and that's the point I'm ready to go find her. Other bodies were found perhaps 10 days after their disappearance, although they were often found in relatively remote locations, so they might have been present for a few days. So I'll say the shortest period between disappearance and discovery of the body is 9 days.I have a few questions. From what I understand, I, as the player, established that the mysterious stranger stayed with the landlord and our patron. What can the landlord tell me about the mysterious stranger? Who determines that, me or the GM? How did the people die, and when the sister "vanished into the night with the stranger" was it something seen, or that when I woke up one day I found my sister was gone, without any obvious trace, and the stranger also happened to be gone? Again, who determines the details? Let me know if you can clarify those, and if we're ready, what's my opening scene?.</blockquote>

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