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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 9040409" data-attributes="member: 6787650">If I didn't know you were arguing in good faith because of prior discourse, this question would give me pause and make me wonder about your motives, because the answer is part of the definition of C:C) unrelated remarkable events often happen if they go to the places where remarkable events happen (Wild West or equivalent)In context it should be clear that "the players decide to go there" is the answer. Otherwise it would be A instead of C.The players may have an agenda, but even if they don't, the Wild West (not the historical version, the tropey version) will have improbable events built into it, maybe in the form of random tables. For as long as the players stay in the Wild West they will experience improbable events regularly; if they leave, they will stop. This distinguishes C from A: the events are not "continually happening". They are conditional upon the players staying in a place where interesting events happen.I feel like I'm stating the obvious here.If D is A then either you're wasting tons of table time waiting around growing crops and doing household chores/etc. until the next interesting thing five or ten years later happens, or you're zooming out/skipping forward is involved, which is my point--controlling pacing via time-skips/zooming out is the only way to resolve the tension between realism and the need for drama. You said it wasn't essential but it is. Otherwise it's either unrealistic [edit: i.e. contrived] or boring (or both).I thought your (B) was about the orcs showing up instead of the goblins? I don't think there's anyone on this thread who would object to remarkable things happening in an otherwise-unremarkable context purely because the PCs made them happen (murdered an emperor, seduced a president, went looking for orcs). The discussion you're having with MaxPerson is not about the presence of interesting consequences to PC actions, it's about the absence of unrelated events happening (and you've said that this absence is not necessarily due to timeskip/zoom-out).Funny how the conversation keeps coming back to subtraction vs. addition. Maybe that's my cue to bow out because last time that discussion went nowhere. I'll finish this post though.That's fine. Then they can meet the goblins instead of the orcs--if your hypothesis is correct, then dramatist-leaning players can be completely satisfied in a 100% simulationist ("realistic") campaign.C, D, and E are all more realistic than A (Weirdness Magnet) or B (Personalized Weirdness Magnet). If you deny their existence and then use that denial to focus on strictly A vs. B then we have nothing to discuss; you're simply rejecting my perspective out of hand.It wouldn't be "too coincidental" if for example E: the players are the ones causing unusual things to happen by taking unusual actions first.I will stop repeating myself now. Hopefully SOMEONE out there on the Internet got some insight out of reading this. I wish it could be you.Yeah, "contrived" is a good word. E (from above discussion with Hawkeye) is less contrived than A or B.</blockquote>

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