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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7379232" data-attributes="member: 82106">No Myth is a general term for games where setting is not established in any fixed way, yes. I mean, part of the basic premise of the game may dictate certain 'givens', if the game were a 'modern urban fantasy detective' genre concept, then presumably it would involve some more-or-less-fantastic version of some real-world metropolis, with all the potential detail that might bring with it. However, it wouldn't be presupposed what sorts of fantastic beings existed in this world or how they were organized, if they were threats exactly, who the characters were, etc. That would all largely be determined based on player inputs via backstory, expressed interests, build choices, and the actions they choose to take, particularly in early establishing scenes.I'm not sure I understand how anything here would be a 'railroad'. First the player expressed a belief/goal for his character. This goal, plus additional backstory, established his location, profession, a dramatic need, and what the desired focus (undead monsters or something similar) would be. NONE of this came from the GM, and in fact a GM is really only mentioned at paragraph 3, where he frames a scene.I see no reason why the player cannot engage with these questions, or take these actions. It wasn't intended that the player had no choices here. I indicated this with "the player makes an attempt to stop him, but fails" to show where a check was attempted and as a result the character didn't get to interact further with this old man character. The player could certainly state that he gets rid of the garlic at this point if he wants. Potentially other checks could have been involved as well, maybe for surprise, for reaction if the player wanted the character to call after the old man and beg him to come back perhaps, etc.The point is, this is a pretty normal sort of encounter in a 'social exploration' mode of play. It could as easily happen in your game.No, I'm not restricting the character. Remember, the player is signifying interest and guiding play by his choices, so if he suddenly decided to tromp off into the woods to find out what was on the other side, then that would be weird and inconsistent with his previously stated character development. I guess it could lead to an entirely different story about druids or something, maybe undead would get factored back in later? I don't know! Most players are not that 'flighty'. Still, I think if the player has some other idea or concept about how to address his character's needs, then he could express it here. He could simply refuse to accept the disappearance of the old man, go find some dogs and track the sucker down come hell or high water. I wouldn't find that to be untoward, just unexpected! I'm betting there's someone in the village with a decent hound dog, and that garlic has the guy's scent on it...OK, again, a fairly reasonable question, and the GM is going to be able to provide some sort of answer. I think my basic answer would maybe be "its getting dark and you see a few lights here and there, as if people are about their evening activities. As you proceed further on there are fewer houses." Yeah, if you were a player and you asked any of them I would not find it unusual or problematic.I think that I only care about the process in terms of what roles the different persons playing the game take and how they experience play. I don't, for instance, think its 'bad' just because a GM fudged a roll in a DM-centered type of game in order to keep it on track. If the game worked and was fun and the experience was what I wanted then I have nothing to complain about. I also think you worry too much about how much the player is in control of the character in Story Now. Players play their characters, they're in charge of them. Yes, the game is not some kind of strict stream-of-consciousness thing where you never skip anything, but no game REALLY is that anyway. Meaningful, that is addressing some character need/agenda/core issue of play, decisions are always made by players, not forced on them by the GM. Other aspects may depend on the system and its focus and intent. For example you might have a check to see if you brought enough torches, or you might have the player decide an exact torch number and track them all. Well, its a question IMHO of agenda of the GM. If he's got a fixed idea of where things go, he may NEED to resort to these things, but maybe not. Certainly there are games which eliminate that issue, and don't hand control to players either, but for example 5e is NOT one of them! Illusionism and force are issues in 5e just like in 2e! OK, I have to break off now, and we can maybe create a thread for that tomorrow? I think it could be fun! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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