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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Baron Opal II" data-source="post: 8773064" data-attributes="member: 6794067">I don't see how the fiction can override the DM; the dice certainly can, and the rules constrain them, but not the fiction. The fiction, as I see it, is a continually evolving state generated from the play.I concur.The one that stuck with me was the "Vir moment" that he talked about. A significant but secondary character, Vir was the one that came to mind when JMS was writing a murder scene. He had planned to use a different character, but as he was writing Vir "stood up" in his imagination and said "it needs to be me and this is why." And so Vir did the deed.I haven't really had that moment yet, and I think it is because the characters are the protagonists. My NPCs have desires, drives, and goals, but it is the PCs that develop the "fiction" in a truly active way. I'm definitely "story-after" in that the "story" is what we talk about two weeks later after everything has gone down. I guess that would make the "fiction" the current setting and action as it happens. I'm depending on the players and the dice to provide all the surprises. One surprise I can think of is when the ranger played by the quietest person at the table stood up and moved a branch of the fiction forward by acting in a direct manner, risking himself in a manner somewhat uncharacteristic. He really wanted to talk to the transcendant entity behind the door, and it was played as a character's chance to experience the wonder of it, rather than a "let's throw the lever and see what happens."I trained a new DM who had sat in a couple of sessions, took notes, and met me later for coffee. She was having a little trouble fitting the players, characters, NPCs and such in her mind. One thing I mentioned that really clicked for her was "I know excactly what the bad guy is going to do, how long it will take, and how bad it will be if the players do nothing. Then, either like the Fellowship or the Scoobies, the PCs enter and we see what happens." Then, on the stage of the adventure, constrained by the rules and surprised by the dice, we discover what they can do about it, and how.So, I don't think the fiction can or does override the DM.Interesting question!</blockquote>

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