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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7381233" data-attributes="member: 42582">But why do those options matter? In the example I gave, the players had an option - do they want to go confront the giants? Or do something else. They chose the former. So why, now, is the GM putting forward a different option that doesn't actually help deliver upon the option they already chose? What's the point?And this answer just reinforces my point that the intersection is an impediment to player agency and instead makes GM-authored content the focus of play. The players were already enjoying the game. And they wanted to go and confront some giants. So why not do that?As far as the idea that they have to do this stuff so they can power up, I will take my email of a loot drop from the Raven Queen over that any time. If the PCs need powering up, then change the numbers on the PC sheets and get on with the game! (Or adjust the framing so that the current numbers on the sheets are good enough.)To repost:The PC is in desperate straits. The player declares a prayer for aid. It's always been a bit of an open question in our 4e game to what extent a PC's player can try and use a Religion check as a bit of a catch-all, but that issue didn't come up in this context - the PC was fighting to recover the fourth segment of the Rod of Seven Parts, as he had been directed by Erathis to do, and so it was clearly within the scope of permissible action declarations.This is obviously silly, isn't it? And I think [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] already posted something about this.I mean, the implication of what you say is that we can never cut to the action, because maybe there is something else the players would have wanted to do if only the GM had drawn it to their attention by narrating 30 extra minutes of travel through the Underdark. If the players may have wanted allies, but didn't think about it, well that's sometime how it happens. They can try and recruit some allies from among the giants. (That doesn't seem that hard. The PCs in my Cortex+ game recruited allies among the giants they met. The PCs in my main 4e game recruited allies among the duergar they met.)More generally, this is another example of confusion between authorship and reality. In real life, the fact that two events are separated by miles of travel makes the prospects of something significant happening in between them more likely. But when writing, there is no reason why the event I write about today can't be followed straight away by writing about an event that (in the fiction) happens in ten years time. If the players indicate that the next event they are interested is their arrival at the giant's cave, then let's cut to that event (or frame a check, or skill challenge, or whatever, to see what happens on the way there).RPGs have always recognised this in some fashion or other - eg no one adjudicates every moment of a PC's life as if it was a round of combat, requiring an initiative check, action declarations, etc. By applying it in this context the players aren't deprived of any chance to play the game. It's just that more of the time spent playing will speak to stuff that concerns dramatic need, thematic issues, etc. Which is the point of "story now" RPGing.</blockquote>

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