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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 9332831" data-attributes="member: 85870">Sure. But that's you choosing to prioritize your own desires over the players'."I totally made up this fictional thing 6 hours / days / weeks / years ago, and somehow just because I totally made it up 6 hours / days / weeks / years ago, I cannot possibly change it. My version of this totally made up, fictional thing is more important than some other version of that fictional thing, just because I deem it to be more important."I mean, sure! Totally your prerogative. Just don't pretend that it isn't what you're doing. Just admit to yourself, "I personally am more invested in seeing my version of these fictional happenings play out the way I've devised them, because I personally will find more enjoyment in doing so." That's EXACTLY what Eero Tuovinen was getting at in the essay I shared. "Trad" GM-ing is, in fact, about "GM Story Hour"! Just make sure it's a damn good story to tell!Just don't lie to yourself and your players afterward and say, "Oh, well, that's just what the 'living world' required of me." No, you just prioritized your desires and intentions over the players' desires and intentions for their characters, end of story.There's a million plausible reasons and means that would allow you to render "The princess dies on Tuesday" as a non-truth in your world, you just decided not to find or use any of them because you want the result of the fiction to go a certain way.Maybe the assassin is waylaid on his way into town. Maybe his ship loses course and he loses 3 days having to backtrack to port. Maybe his horse goes lame and he has to walk a considerably longer distance than he intended. Maybe the assassin's employer refused to pay him, so he reneged. Maybe the assassin has a pang of conscience or realizes the risks are too great, and simply runs off with the money. Maybe some piece of vital equipment needed to scale the castle walls didn't arrive in time, so he has to delay his assassination attempt for a week. Maybe he gets in a bar fight and his hand gets sliced open and can't do the job. Maybe he bumps into an old rival and decides the princess can wait for a week to settle an old score . . . ad infinitum.In narrative-driven play, as a GM you would avail yourself of any of these, if the game indicated that the player had succeeded at his/her intent, and the in-fiction positioning allowed for that success. The player gets his visit with the princess, because you're prioritizing that element of the player's stated intentions and stakes over the need to follow an arbitrarily-established-by-pure-fiat timeline of events.*Edit: Having one final thought --- This was a big hurdle for me to get over as a former "trad" focused GM. Hearing and accepting that my conception of the "living world" wasn't really all that precious, and vital, and wonderful, and absolutely foundational to everything that's good and true about RPG play. That it really is just "stuff I made up and decided I liked better than stuff anyone else might make up, because that's the kind of story I want to tell." Does that mean that in-world consistency and plausibility aren't important? NO, they're vitally important. It's just that things that often get set in stone by GMs are in actuality 1000x more flexible than they realize, and in truth, most players would prefer that flexibility in most cases.</blockquote>

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