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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6112178" data-attributes="member: 4937">I mean it in the sense of "the antagonist of the PCs".  But I also mean it in the sense that I'm perfectly prepared to play this out like a Miyasaki movie, with the apparant antagonist proving not to be a villain and becoming an ally, and conversely allies becoming villains.   I don't want to discuss to much about exactly what the conflict and stakes are just in case my players stumble on the discussion.That being said, it is very hard for me as the GM, not to have my own (secret, hidden) judgment on the actions and beliefs of both NPCs and PCs alike.  I don't actually think what is evil is up for grabs.   I think that the problem of evil can lead to disagreements over the best way to confront the problem and that there can often be thorny problems with no perfect solution, and I think people can end up doing evil with otherwise noble motives.  But I don't think that there is really much interesting in the question of what is evil.  While the villains in my story don't think of themselves as the villians, but rather as the heroes and consider the PCs to be the villains and have perfectly reasonable reasons for thinking that (the PCs are hardly pure as driven snow themselves), still from my vantage as GM it is impossible for me to not make certain judgments about how both protagonist and antagonist depart from what I'd consider 'righteous', 'just', and 'good' behavior.   All that being said, I frequently have players that stake out moral turf that is somewhat different than mine, but which they think is right and good and that's perfectly acceptable.That seems to me somewhat evasive, as we seem to have established that what is genera credible depends on what is possible mechanically within the system by the character.  Or in other words, "can this person do this" seems to be rather the same as "is it genera credible".I don't think that was ever really in contention.  I'm not trying to discover what my preferences are, nor what sort of play it leads to.Your frequent appeals to less charitable understanding of what other posters are saying is the main thing that badly undermines your posts.Anyway, your discussion of BW is interesting, but so far you are only confirming for me that the difference is that BW assumes and mandates backstory creation and GM engagement with the backstory, whereas in many other game systems such backstory creation and GM engagement with backstory is only one of many possible techniques and approaches to play.  I still don't necessarily agree that backstory creation and GM engagement with backstory moves BW out of predominantly a simulationist approach to play, as the various techniques of BW I consider part of my bag of tricks and its pretty clear to you and me that I'm predominately simulationist in my approach.  All I really see here is different assumptions about what is to be explored and simulated, but I'm still seeing in Luke what is my basic assumption good sim => story.So, would you say that BW requires all scenes to be the result of player initiative and GM reaction, or is it assumed that at time the GM will intiate scenes that the players must react to?You seem to fall into the habit of using 'belief' and 'goal' interchangably.  Are you suggesting in this scene that the players beliefs are, "I will defeat the lich king" and "I will recover my families heirloom", or are they something like, "I will redeem the honor of my family" and "I will free the land from the grip of evil" with the actions undertaken being the "therefore" of the beliefs?This gets to the real heart of my investigation.  You say that this is true.  I'm just not seeing it (yet) from your explanation.  To me it sounds almost like you are saying, "If the book is in the genera I like, and is about the things I like, then I will like the book."Well, you could explain where in those two sentences you quoted it says something about negotiating the framing of a scene rather than initation action resolution by making a proposition framed in the language of the rules.Ok, now here for the first time I'm seeing something like player having authorial power.  The player is asserting power over the setting - not only is he asserting a fact about the NPC, but he's asserting the existance of the secret passage - neither of which exist prior to his assertion.  Can you give me examples from the text of this authorial power being affirmed by the rules, and also quote any relevant discussion of how this authorial power is to be managed?  For example, how is the obstacle to a PC initiated authorial statement to be set, since the question here isn't "Can I find the secret passage" but "Does the secret passage exist in the first place?"Given Hussar's dim recollection of the events, I don't think that we can assume that.  I'm pretty sure from what I remember that the railroad is much more tightly written than that, so that you have no choice but to encounter the NPC (he shows up to aid the players in a fight against some minor demons).  Indeed, IIRC it is the NPC who casts the Plane Shift, thereby ensuring that the party will Plane Shift whether they have that resource or not.Well, I do.  If the player has the belief "I am the True King", and this belief is false then either he is a figure of tragic comedy or else he is a dangerous lunatic.  First the belief lacks an essential heroic quality - humility.  Secondly, the belief by being false cannot be noble but is delusional.  The belief "I am the True King" must have some basis in fact to be noble.  Now, a belief like, "I will rid my land of the tyrant", does suggest at least a noble potential - provided that it has at least some grounding in reality.  If my player wants to make his character have some essential nobility, I'll endeavor to make his beliefs have some basis in fact or will at least work with him to find a similar belief that I'm willing to accept as factual.  But even a belief like, "I will become King by the power of my own strong right hand", suggests a less than heroic motif since its basis - 'might makes right', ambition, lust for power, violence as the tool for success, all suggest a character in the role of anti-hero, anti-villain or even out right villain rather than in the role of hero.On the contrary, I believe a player which creates a peasant with the false belief "I am the rightful king", is wasting everyone's time if thinks that the resulting game is going to be inherently about affirming the truth of his false belief.  Either we need to establish in his backstory that he is the rightful king, or at least has reasonable claim to it, or else the player needs to understand that the delusional belief is ridiculous in a peasant.  This is something inherently true of the incongruity of a peasant believing he is a king, not something being imposed on it.  It's equally a tragic figure for someone who is clearly the true king and recognized as such by everyone to believe he is actually a peasant.  Delusion renders a figure pitiable at best, and disgusting and vile at worst.   A true king disposed of his throne may claim a right to redress this injustice, both for his own benefit and for the sake of his people.  Even so, the rightful king could still be a figure of horror despite having legitimate grounds for his belief.  A peasant who is not the true king, who attempts to redress the imagined injustice on the basis of his delusional rights is always an object of horror.</blockquote>

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