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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6112147" data-attributes="member: 6681948">How is this any less contrived than meeting the NPC in the desert?I think this is the sort of responsiveness to manifested player preferences that Hussar is advocating. It's certainly the sort of responsiveness that I prefer. I have not seen anyone disagree with that.  But I think the issue posed has been where those riding rolls indicate his plan is untenable, or at least poses a non-trivial risk to the characters, Hussar feels they should still be waived – but only this one time – so that his desired scene of riding across the desert on this bizarre beast plays out exactly as he intends it. So what happens when another player suggests “hey, since it’s been established that riding this thing through the shattered waster, up and down sheer vertical inclines, at top speed is trivially easy, why are we dismounting to sneak past the siege into the city?  Full speed ahead!  We can slash at any troops close enough to threaten us from higher ground, sped through their lines, up the city wall and down the other side”.  And now the GM has to say “No”.  But if it was trivially easy to ride this beast, full speed, through the wasteland, this new plan also seems trivially easy to implement.  And maybe that’s just Player 2 saying “skip the siege scene”. That being the case, why are we engaging in mechanical resolution of this trivially easy task? That which you wish to dismiss is deemed irrelevant and that which you wish to maintain is deemed as relevant.  So far, the only definition I am seeing you apply to “relevant” is “that which Pemerton thinks would be a good thing to include”.  Relevant can still be dull and uninteresting.  Irrelevant can still be entertaining and engaging. So now we are interested because it is relevant and it is relevant because we are interested in it.  Assessment of what is relevant seems quite subjective by your measure. And what happens when one of five players is bored and the other four are highly engaged?  What if it’s 2 and 3 players?  Where is the line drawn?  [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] stresses that one bored player means skip the scene, but ignores that the other four’s fun is diminished for the benefit of that one player.  Of course, those four aren’t on the internet complaining about the bad GM who kowtows to one demanding player who has “scene veto approval”.  Sure, he claims it works for all the players, but the other players wanted to play out all the scenes, not just a select few.  And what if one player says “screw the city” or “I’m bored with the Grell”, or “a siege doesn’t do it for me – can’t we be greeted by hot chicks handing out leis instead?”? Do we skip those scenes, that the rest of the group are so focused on, as well? I think that is what many of us have been trying to do.  Over 80 pages in, we seem to have “what I find interesting is pretty much random and subjective, so predict my whims and focus on what I will find relevant”.  We even have Hussar’s repeated statement that, under other circumstances or at other times, similar scenes would hold interest for him.  Predicting what strikes the fancy of a group of players like that seems quite the challenge to set. Balderdash!  The belief that “I am rightful King of all the Land” sums up that character’s story arc – his pursuit of evidence, persuasion of others and campaign to ascend to his rightful throne is the character’s story arc.  Perhaps it succeeds, or perhaps it fails miserably.  One step along this arc, when the two PC’s with incompatible goals face off and Will resolve (with failure) one character’s story arc while highlighting and advancing the other’s. There is a clear predetermined story arc for each character.  For one, it is "I will rule the wizards by Vecna's side" and for the other "Vecna will never conquer the empire".  One arc concluded in failure when “allies of Vecna sacrificed the second PC to their dark gods” while the second advanced as “The first PC stood by - then struck a deal with those same Vecna-ites in which he sold out his home city in exchange for political privilege” Should there be some small satisfaction in knowing you are also puzzled?As many , yourself I believe included, have said all along, the desert (or the siege) can be trivial colour mandating minimal game time, or can be a danger zone, entertaining an exciting to the players while frustrating delays to their characters. Neither is inherently relevant, nor inherently irrelevant (nor inherently interesting or boring) by default.  Making it interesting is the GM’s job – if it won’t be, the GM’s job is to relegate it to backdrop. Exactly.  Both are obstacles standing between the PC and their nebulous and undefined goal in the city.  Both may contain potential to be leveraged by the PC’s in pursuit of their goals (make it look like siege looting; make it look like the thieves perished in the desert – both very simple examples) and both can be made interesting, engaging and highly relevant to PC goals, or interesting, engaging and utterly irrelevant to their goals, or mind numbingly dull and boring whether or not relevant to the PC goals.  You say the same thing a bit further below, so I’ll clip that area I fully agree with. Area of disagreement emphasized.  Animate Goalposts has seen liberal use throughout this thread, probably not consciously – 80+ pages tends to have some drifting.Exactly – and if I can’t fathom what makes one of these complications welcome and engaging, and the other so mind-numbingly boring it must be dismissed before it can begin, selecting another complication becomes a coin toss for which category it falls into.Once again, I ask the same two questions: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">How often is too often for use of the cheat code?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">How many players in the group does it take to activate the cheat code?</li> </ul>Set the number of players you are comfortable, tell me how frequently the cheat code comes out and what happens when there is disagreement over whether its use is appropriate.  Indicate where the GM’s say differs from that of the other players. So it’s not in any way contrived that all the PC’s have these mutually compatible goals,  but pretty much anything else that might engage the players/characters in the game and make occurrences more relevant to them is so very contrived as to be poor GMing.   I think the PC’s need to be designed to have common ground without having a hive mind.  I suspect that your group template would favour the former (eg.  “all characters should be money-motivated mercenaries who are presently imprisoned with just cause) rather than the latter (eg. All characters should be devoted to the worship of Hecate above all other goals, share her alignment and live only to serve the purposes of the church and the goddess, willing to sacrifice everything up to and including their very souls in her service).</blockquote>

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