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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JamesonCourage" data-source="post: 6124737" data-attributes="member: 6668292">Well, of course I approach the game quite differently -my players would feel the need to gain information about either situation. This could be investigative (talking to the nomads / refugees, rolling Knowledge checks about the city the refugees might be from or about the nomads, etc.), or it could be with skills (scouting the siege to find out race or nation, rolling Knowledge checks about banners or leaders, etc.). Either way, I -as the GM- expect to be expanding on the situation. My players won't go "nomads, city folk yelling to me, and mercenaries? No idea what this is about" but say "a siege? We obviously know what this is about." No; in both situations, they'll investigate in-game, which takes times out-of-game to resolve while they get that "background" information. It is almost exclusively only after they have more information do they decide to act; they act quickly at times, but this is usually due to extreme time pressures or reacting to a threat of some kind.But, again, Hussar's explanation of "player buy-in" and the seemingly inherent link to geography makes things much clearer to me. What Hussar has told me makes sense in its consistency. What you're saying here doesn't, since, in my games, both would be investigated. One situation is more straightforward, to be sure, but I don't see what that has to do with investigation prior to use (your sword and identify / wand example). As always, play what you like <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I strongly disagree. I think you can be correct, of course. But, massive situational penalties may be applied because the situation calls for it, not because I have a plot in mind (I emphatically do not have one in mind for the party; too much work for my tastes). Constant roadblocks might be the way the world currently functions in this area (such as being in a very hostile area). Universally obstructive NPCs might be enemies with the goal of stopping you from completing your goals.At no point are they in my game to simply get the players to act how I want them to. My game is entirely player-driven, in this regard. They go where they want to, I continue the world simulation, and we see what happens. This will call for situational modifiers (both bonuses and penalties), encounters (both convenient and inconvenient events), and interactions with NPCs (both helpful and hostile). I'm not trying to railroad them or knock them back on course when the bad stuff pops up.I get how this could be the case, especially for a style of game that is a lot less "I'll run the world, and you guys play in it" style of game. However, I really can't emphatically disagree more with your generalization above. But, that's just my group; you're surely correct about many other groups out there. As always, play what you like <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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