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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7395588" data-attributes="member: 82106">I think there is SOME difference between saying &quot;I don't have this problem&quot; and saying &quot;My technique should not be criticized for X because only a Scottsman would have that problem.&quot; Now, do these two positions often seem to merge and people state one and mean the other? Yeah, probably, at least sometimes, but you shouldn't criticize my position because someone did that! <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&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />As far as the consistency thing itself goes... I think the degree to which pre-authorship of material and backstory (world building) 'creates consistency' is often vastly overrated and overstated. I think most settings, whether homebrew or published, aren't all that internally consistent. They may be consistent in some surface areas (maybe) like having a consistent map, and maybe they have consistent descriptions of locations, NPCs, etc. (maybe). Beyond that I find they are mostly pretty inconsistent. There's little, if any, way to enforce consistency on NPCs in play for instance, so they often act in unpredictable and GM-serving ways, or just in ways that are completely unrealistic, violate their descriptions, etc. In terms of things making 'logical sense', I don't think that happens much. So I'm not sure I see consistency as some sort of great virtue. Nor do I see ease of play for the GM as a really great virtue. Obviously if I made up something last night before play, then its pretty fresh in my mind, and maybe it could be easier to lay it out. However, in my campaign I have 6 large notebooks, MANY loose maps and things, as well as a LARGE harddrive folder and a very extensive Wiki that are all full of stuff. Just to research an existing topic related to things that I KNOW have come up before and have canonical answers in my game is not always a small task!</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7395588, member: 82106"] I think there is SOME difference between saying "I don't have this problem" and saying "My technique should not be criticized for X because only a Scottsman would have that problem." Now, do these two positions often seem to merge and people state one and mean the other? Yeah, probably, at least sometimes, but you shouldn't criticize my position because someone did that! ;) As far as the consistency thing itself goes... I think the degree to which pre-authorship of material and backstory (world building) 'creates consistency' is often vastly overrated and overstated. I think most settings, whether homebrew or published, aren't all that internally consistent. They may be consistent in some surface areas (maybe) like having a consistent map, and maybe they have consistent descriptions of locations, NPCs, etc. (maybe). Beyond that I find they are mostly pretty inconsistent. There's little, if any, way to enforce consistency on NPCs in play for instance, so they often act in unpredictable and GM-serving ways, or just in ways that are completely unrealistic, violate their descriptions, etc. In terms of things making 'logical sense', I don't think that happens much. So I'm not sure I see consistency as some sort of great virtue. Nor do I see ease of play for the GM as a really great virtue. Obviously if I made up something last night before play, then its pretty fresh in my mind, and maybe it could be easier to lay it out. However, in my campaign I have 6 large notebooks, MANY loose maps and things, as well as a LARGE harddrive folder and a very extensive Wiki that are all full of stuff. Just to research an existing topic related to things that I KNOW have come up before and have canonical answers in my game is not always a small task! [/QUOTE]

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