TheRPGSite

Something that occurred to me from the thread on "Do your PCs walk around town in armor?" (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=32755)

I've been in a number of games where the PCs were set up to be bumbling fools, which tend to culminate in conflict and frustration. Personally, I have a few rules of thumb that I have for play. There are always exceptions, but these are the baseline:

1) The PCs will be key movers and shakers for the scope that they're currently in. So, rather than being junior members of a national organization, acting as backup for the big heroes, they are some of the toughest people in the village.

2) Their adventures generally give the PCs social status. If they eliminate the monsters from the caves outside town, then they are celebrated heroes of the town. If they are scary dangerous, then they are like famed outlaw gunslingers.

3) The PCs will be better informed about action-relevant stuff than the NPCs they meet, in general. An individual NPC will have many pieces of information that they don't have, but they have a better grasp of the big picture. In particular, I strictly avoid having dialogue with NPCs which are really about me as GM lecturing to the players. If they really need an info dump, then I'll have them make a skill roll for information-gathering, and give a concise summary of what they find. Preferably, though, I'll set them up to already have key information that others don't know.

How do these compare to your rules of thumb?

It depends on the game for me. If we are running a procedural where the PCs are beat cops or something, then they'll have whatever status that and their history affords; if we are running buddy action cop (like Lethal Weapon) they'll be able to get away with a lot more and when they do outrageous stuff it will be because they're just "those guys".

In my wuxia campaign, power has bearing on your status. Being a badass pretty much lets you flaunt social convention (to a point). The players have been able to break from social norms as their powers increased. However they may have other powerful people react if they're behavior is particularly egregious.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;843634It depends on the game for me. If we are running a procedural where the PCs are beat cops or something, then they'll have whatever status that and their history affords; if we are running buddy action cop (like Lethal Weapon) they'll be able to get away with a lot more and when they do outrageous stuff it will be because they're just "those guys".

Yes, obviously it depends on the game.

Still, having these as defaults does guide what games I run. For example, I'm unlikely to run a game where the PCs are low-rank beat cops on a force. It's not that they will necessarily be tougher than this - but they'll be fairly autonomous. So they're more likely to be a sheriff, deputy, and pals in a small town rather than beat cops in a big city.

Obviously, the concrete status and prestige of the player characters greatly depends on the setting, and type of the campaign. But,generally I vastly prefer the player characters at the begin of a campaign to be outsiders if not outright outcasts, underdogs or the like: those who might have great potential, but are both desperate and non-conformist enough to abandon the relative security of a normal life and become adventurers/mercenaries/treasure hunters, and smart, plucky and sometimes brutal enough to flourish under these circumstances.

During the ongoing events of the campaign, the characters then might earn more respect, gain influence and also enemies, of course (because snobbish aristocrats or their likes who snub their noses at the upstarts are just enormously fun minor antagonists for the PCs to defeat eventually).  But that success has to be their own doing and the natural result of the events within the game, because that makes it an achievement.

I would also almost never use the PCs within a rigid hierarchy like a police force, at least in modern setting. "You are the henchmen of the Sheriff of Nottingham" might work, though. Placing the caimpaign within a regulated power structure automatically limits the character's freedom and independence due to their fixed role and automatically puts them into a subservient role within the power structure. I think it is more fun to leave the players with more freedoms and, as a side effect, more limited ressources so that they can but also have to be more creative.

So yeah. The player characters in my campaigns (and the characters I like to play) are more likely to be at a considerable low point in their lives when the actual action starts and can now try to make things right for themselves - or die trying.

In any setting, it's hard to have PCs that are too conformist.  Conformity is a trait of NPCs.  You can put the PCs under someone, but even then your average PC will have more goals and desires than to "serve the boss".

In light of that, I rarely view PCs as having a place inside a social system.  Either they have earned a place near/at the top (barons, dukes, etc.) or they are viewed as useful outsiders - potentially dangerous, but solving real problems.  

So yeah, the typical PC is someone who has a problem with the current society (which may be flawed, corrupt or evil - so it can be a legitimate issue) or the current society has problems with them.

Quote from: jhkim;843631I've been in a number of games where the PCs were set up to be bumbling fools, which tend to culminate in conflict and frustration.

That seems odd. Who enjoys that?

As for the rest that all depends on what we are playing. For now, I'll comment from my current H+I game.

Quote1) The PCs will be key movers and shakers for the scope that they're currently in. So, rather than being junior members of a national organization, acting as backup for the big heroes, they are some of the toughest people in the village.

As a game/genre conceit I assume the PCs are more likely to act when given a situation than most NPCs. But the PCs are usually the people who act, not because they are more competent than all the NPCs, but because we are looking at the setting from the perspective of the PCs. So whatever choices they make those are the ones we follow and witness the resulting repercussions.

Quote2) Their adventures generally give the PCs social status.

If they succeed. they gain status. Also they may gain social infamy. I'm running a game which is exclusively human and where the PCs have patrons who are higher in social status than they and antagonists who are often of higher social rank than the PCs so their successes and failures tend to give them both social status in some circles and gain them enemies or infamy in other social circles.

Quote3) The PCs will be better informed about action-relevant stuff than the NPCs they meet, in general.

I'm not sure I know what you mean here. But I suspect I don't do this. People know what they know. Their status as PC or NPC doesn't alter that.

I think there are some differences in how we see the role of the PCs, though probably not unbridgeable differences.

Typically IMCs the PCs are regarded as having legitimate reasons to do the default adventuring activity - so warriors are allowed to wear armour in most circumstances, say. The PCs won't be harrassed by the authorities if they behave appropriately, though appropriate in eg the City State of the Invincible Overlord may involve paying bribes/kickbacks. PCs who do heroic pro-societal feats will likely have additional leeway.

Quote from: jhkim;843631Something that occurred to me from the thread on "Do your PCs walk around town in armor?" (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=32755)

I've been in a number of games where the PCs were set up to be bumbling fools, which tend to culminate in conflict and frustration. Personally, I have a few rules of thumb that I have for play. There are always exceptions, but these are the baseline:

1) The PCs will be key movers and shakers for the scope that they're currently in. So, rather than being junior members of a national organization, acting as backup for the big heroes, they are some of the toughest people in the village.

2) Their adventures generally give the PCs social status. If they eliminate the monsters from the caves outside town, then they are celebrated heroes of the town. If they are scary dangerous, then they are like famed outlaw gunslingers.

3) The PCs will be better informed about action-relevant stuff than the NPCs they meet, in general. An individual NPC will have many pieces of information that they don't have, but they have a better grasp of the big picture. In particular, I strictly avoid having dialogue with NPCs which are really about me as GM lecturing to the players. If they really need an info dump, then I'll have them make a skill roll for information-gathering, and give a concise summary of what they find. Preferably, though, I'll set them up to already have key information that others don't know.

How do these compare to your rules of thumb?

For most fantasy games # 1 & 2 largely apply. #3 depends on the actions of the players. They can take steps to become better informed about things going on but it isn't automatically conferred to them because of PC status.

NPCs have valuable information and some of them may be better connected and thus have more access to the information than the PCs. Consider an underworld/thieves guild member who has lived and operated in a city his/her whole life. Compare that to a PC rogue who has just drifted into town in the last week or so. The city native will have a MUCH better grasp on the big picture of local events than the drifter.

Of course the PC may bring valuable knowledge that isn't local into the mix, but they may need to access that local expertise to bring everything into context. I like for some NPC's to have value and that require players to interact/negotiate with them to gain that information. When it comes to the heroic action I like the PCs to grab all the glory.

I've always used PC level or the tier as an indicator of status in the larger world.

For example, at around level 1-3, the PCs are a big deal to the locals who are directly affected by their actions, but everyone else treats them as wanderers, pawns or expendable resources. From level 4-9 the waves they make are felt on a regional level and they are effectively changing the face of the campaign world. With the right group of players, at about level 10+ they can be major forces in their own right and direct the course of events as they will, but my campaigns tend to end before that point.

Quote from: jhkim;8436313) The PCs will be better informed about action-relevant stuff than the NPCs they meet, in general.

I think what you're saying here is that the NPCs hold various bits of information, but it's up to the PCs to assemble it and figure out what it means in the campaign, as opposed to tracking down the one NPC who can explain it all to them. That's my approach when dealing with "mysterious plots" and the like. It's always fun to see what shape the players will assemble from the pieces and how it relates to what I actually prepared.

Interesting topic.

Playing GURPS, some of these elements are player-defined.  They choose their own status, and their skill set and other choices (Contacts, for instance) directs a good bit of their information flow.  I agree that if the players did a good job of spreading background skills around, they're likely to know more about most things than random villagers.

They are likely to be higher status than the locals.  Simply being an "adventurer" doesn't do it -- there's little visual difference between a newbie fighter and a veteran mercenary, except that the newbie fighter's less likely to have pawned her armor for beer.

But out in a small village adventuring in the field?

It's an enduring truth that even clean-cut, upstanding, Godfearing warriors are tolerated only for so long during a crisis, and only thereafter if they try hard to assimilate. Quite aside from that a significant percentage of locals, if not a majority, will never believe the adventurers' efforts were really necessary – she wasn't MY daughter and I didn't see no orcs anyway, I'm sure the dragon would've moved on, and Mother Ginevra's prayers to Manannan were what drove the plague away, not what that ragamuffin bunch of vagrants claimed to have done in some ruined temple somewhere! – they're seldom that.

Instead, c'mon ... we know what most adventurers are like. They don't show the accustomed deference or respect to local authority or customs, and they sure don't obey them. They don't often worship as the locals do. They've often got strange, rough, uncouth manners, and even the nicest of them patronize the weak peasants they had to bail out of trouble. They've got women waving swords, and wizards mucking with things decent folk ought not muck with, and some of 'em ain't even human! The hardest bone to swallow is that every bored kid in the area is neglecting his or her chores and lessons to flirt or fawn all over them. Why, 'Ressa's got that old sword of great-grandfather's out of the trunk, and she says she's going off to be one of them!

That's with the presumption the adventurers are nice guys. Which of course they wouldn't all be. A lot more of them'll be bastards than heroes. A group of adventurers could easily terrorize a farming village, and a week's worth of pillaging, vandalism, molestation and violence will color attitudes for a generation. Be the PCs ever so decent, if the last crew through was a band reminiscent of Flesh+Blood, their reception won't be friendly.

How can the PCs be set up to be bumbling fools, or anything else for that matter? Seems like the moment the game starts the PCs will become whatever the players make of them, no matter the GM's attempts to enforce his assigned roles. Sounds like a cruddy game all around. But so does "PCs are automatically a big deal!"

PCs are usually involved in violence. Thus, they'll be like the people involved in The Life, and ordinary people would have a healthy dose of respect for their skills.
Whether it's mixed with fear, appreciation or authority depends on whether they're part of the official power structures of the setting.

In my campaigns and the ones I play in it has usually been that the PCs are pretty nondescript. They may gain notoriety later, or they may not. If they are playing for the endgame of a domain then as a DM I try to present those opportunities now and then if it fits what the PCs are doing. Which may or may not get them up the social ranks.

As a player I tend to prefer starting out fresh and working upwards from there. That could be via a patron, or could be just us out on our own. Right now the current group I am playing in is fairly unknown to anyone at large as we have been doing this swamp campaign for quite a while now, (level 10, soon to be 11), and pretty much no one really knows we are out here or what we are doing aside from a ranger who asked us to investigate the going on in the swamp wayyyyyyy back at level 1.

An interesting subject.

I think there are many PC-status conventions which don't make sense, which especially show up in computer RPG's. Mainly, that they want to at least start the PCs as low-status yet entrust them with some important quest, and then make them deal with various low-status or medium-status gameplay obstacles and abuse even after they've gained many super-cool powers that make them superheroes - but they're still going to be treated like peasants by many people, attacked by common thieves, asked to run petty errands, swindled by shop-keepers, etc.

I try to have PC status be consistent and make sense in my game worlds. It usually hinges not just on the PC's accomplishments but more importantly on their behavior. Status comes from making and maintaining a good impression. If they do a great service to the powers that be, they may get on a fast-track to high status, especially if they seem to be well-behaved, trustworthy, and capable of future good. But if they seem to be untrustworthy or dangerous, or powerful mainly because they have powerful equipment, they may end up becoming targets or outcasts, or have high-status only amongst the rougher social circles. The PCs' skills, status, culture, and connections and politics may have a large effect too.

To clarify about what I'm talking about.

First, about the campaigns I've disliked that I described as setting the PCs up to be fools.

1) In a common setup, the PCs begin as homeless strangers who seem to be dropped into an area where they have no connections and no knowledge of what is going on. The locals treat them by default with suspicion as armed outsiders. They come into a tavern or similar, and there an NPC contacts them - seeming to know what their situation is, and offers information and a job for them. They then go off into danger, knowing only what the stranger told them.

I've had fun in games like this, but I prefer alternatives. Here are a few:

2) The PCs are strangers in the region, but they came there with a purpose - and have reliable information about secret goings-on to guide them. For example, the PCs might have knowledge of a cult operating, and they've come into the area following leads. They know key figures in the cult and what their bases are, though not details. Or in a modern-day game, they are hunters with special knowledge of the supernatural, who come into town with clues about what is going on.

3) The PCs are strangers in the region, but they have special high status. For example, they could be agents of the Inquisition (Dark Heresy), the captain and officers of a Federation starship (Star Trek), or envoys of the Aldean government (Blue Rose). Alternately, it could be a place where adventurers have high status - like a monster-plagued region that relies on informal adventurers for protection.

4) The PCs are locals who have connections and lives in the area. For example, they might be superheroes in a city dealing with threats that show up (various), wizards who have settled in the area (Ars Magica).


All of these allow for plenty of surprises to the PCs, but gives the PCs more to go on and work with than being unconnected strangers.

Quote from: jhkim;843868To clarify  

Thanks for clarifying. That makes sense and I agree. Even though the setup in #1 is an RPG cliché I've never actually seen it in play nor used it. It seems like it may be a relic of some of the early D&D modules. That always seemed lame and silly. It's a bad mix of sword s & sorcery with the noir detective trope of kicking off the case by having some random (lying) stranger come into the office of Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade and ask for their help.

Why would a bunch of strangers accept employment from a mysterious (possibly drunken) stranger? Heck Bilbo (and the dwarves) in the Hobbit already knew who Gandalf was and had some reason to respect his opinion even if they may not have initially trusted him. Then he accompanied them long enough for them to have some reason to trust him.

Depends on the game.

Most of the time regarding PCs I could care less about what you say you are, I care more about what you did. So "big, known heroes" is something you earn, not inherit. Otherwise, I could care less about PCs starting out from hard scrabble and staying there. Find your own meaning in the game I run (roughly within premise and scope, please!).

Quote from: jhkim;843868To clarify about what I'm talking about.

First, about the campaigns I've disliked that I described as setting the PCs up to be fools.

1) In a common setup, the PCs begin as homeless strangers who seem to be dropped into an area where they have no connections and no knowledge of what is going on. The locals treat them by default with suspicion as armed outsiders. They come into a tavern or similar, and there an NPC contacts them - seeming to know what their situation is, and offers information and a job for them. They then go off into danger, knowing only what the stranger told them.

I don't use this one anymore, except for games where PCs are playing mercenaries.

QuoteI've had fun in games like this, but I prefer alternatives. Here are a few:

2) The PCs are strangers in the region, but they came there with a purpose - and have reliable information about secret goings-on to guide them. For example, the PCs might have knowledge of a cult operating, and they've come into the area following leads. They know key figures in the cult and what their bases are, though not details. Or in a modern-day game, they are hunters with special knowledge of the supernatural, who come into town with clues about what is going on.

This might work for CoC or similar monster-hunters, or for a spy game.

Quote3) The PCs are strangers in the region, but they have special high status. For example, they could be agents of the Inquisition (Dark Heresy), the captain and officers of a Federation starship (Star Trek), or envoys of the Aldean government (Blue Rose). Alternately, it could be a place where adventurers have high status - like a monster-plagued region that relies on informal adventurers for protection.

This might do for a cop game, or similar. Swashbuckling, Wuxia or Kungfu games are often like that, if we play with the "Xia is a status in itself" trope (which usually means "we need people that like to fight" more than anything else).
Also works for Pendragon.

Quote4) The PCs are locals who have connections and lives in the area. For example, they might be superheroes in a city dealing with threats that show up (various), wizards who have settled in the area (Ars Magica).

That's my default for pretty much anything else.

I think it depends enormously on the type of campaign you're running.

That said, I always give my players all the knowledge in any situation that their characters should know.  And in situations where there might be cultural or other types of situations where the PCs should know how to act but the players might not, I always make the details clear to the players before they make a final decision on what they say or do.

Yes, the type of game and scale and setting are critical.  

My main game is very guild and faction heavy, but very, very low power and low growth.
So there, the PCs have the advantage of their guild connections and faction associations and often use them with social and informational skills (Guild Lore, et al).  This is because the game is magic and social heavy but very lethal, with slow growth.  Also because I play very, very long games.   So a new group starting is full of novices on apprentices in their guilds, with their social backgrounds behind that.  But they spend a long time in that lower strata.  My main live group, the Igbarians is 13 years of playtime with a lot of 5-7 year old characters, and they are far more powerful and have more knowledge than most, but they are still not on a power par with the guild leaders.   And socially, they have many enemies in the mercantile guilds and older families of Igbar,


Now, my main experiment game deals with this question even more directly.      It's my online game, now onto session 57 (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=26998). where the PCs have taken the role of first year students in an ancient and huge school of magic (in the same setting).  So their status is first year students.  Yes, they are not among the Void-Blind (they can cast), so that does give them a little boost, but in the school and life, they are kids, human equiv of 12-14.  That was part of the experiment in this game, moving the system even further to see if it could really work in this social-heavy, mystery-heavy, semi-gothic fashion.

Quote from: jhkim;843868To clarify about what I'm talking about.

First, about the campaigns I've disliked that I described as setting the PCs up to be fools.

1) In a common setup, the PCs begin as homeless strangers who seem to be dropped into an area where they have no connections and no knowledge of what is going on. The locals treat them by default with suspicion as armed outsiders. They come into a tavern or similar, and there an NPC contacts them - seeming to know what their situation is, and offers information and a job for them. They then go off into danger, knowing only what the stranger told them.

Shit referee is shit.

Even in OD&D at first level that's bullshit.  A first level fighter in OD&D is a "veteran."

"I am accounted the best horseman in all of Crisby Dale!"

"Oh!  Well!  When one has said that, one has said everything!"

-- Black Shield of Falworth

#1 seems to be the default box inside which most computer "RPGs" are scripted.

In our D&D campaigns the PCs are typically rootless rogues, and the setting is usually a hostile, dangerous, suspicious place. Any heroism is incidental. One of the reasons we never really made the jump to playing WFRP is we were already playing WFRP with D&D.

Quote from: Skarg;844495#1 seems to be the default box inside which most computer "RPGs" are scripted.

To quote Gronan, shit referee is shit, no matter man or machine.

There are plenty of players who are fine with #1. I think it is common because it has very few assumptions, so it's easy to switch between adventures and use pre-written modules. For example, if both the GM and the players want to just move on to the dungeon / adventure, it's an easy option.

Quote from: RPGPundit;844162I think it depends enormously on the type of campaign you're running.

That said, I always give my players all the knowledge in any situation that their characters should know.  And in situations where there might be cultural or other types of situations where the PCs should know how to act but the players might not, I always make the details clear to the players before they make a final decision on what they say or do.

Well, that's fine, but I think most GMs would claim this regardless.

A common issue is if the players are informed, but they have to remember and internalize everything the GM has said. If they don't keep up with the GM, then they are penalized.

I think a useful metric to look at is - how often does an NPC make some social blunder, and offend and/or have to apologize to the PCs? For some GMs, it's almost always the other way - the PCs are the ones who make social blunders, and NPCs are offended.

That's what I'd like to avoid.

Quote from: jhkim;844633I think a useful metric to look at is - how often does an NPC make some social blunder, and offend and/or have to apologize to the PCs? For some GMs, it's almost always the other way - the PCs are the ones who make social blunders, and NPCs are offended.

That's what I'd like to avoid.

It happens, when I find it should happen. The NPCs are, generally, able to not offend the PCs involuntarily, since in most cultures I run this is considered a survival skill:).
Of course, even natives to a culture can make a mistake under the influence of drugs, high or low spirits, or just spirits;).

Quote from: jhkim;844633I think a useful metric to look at is - how often does an NPC make some social blunder, and offend and/or have to apologize to the PCs? For some GMs, it's almost always the other way - the PCs are the ones who make social blunders, and NPCs are offended.

That's what I'd like to avoid.

Yeah, me too.

The way I see it, not even the best educated and informed among us are natives of the milieus most of us run, and we don't have the level of immersion to notice what someone who isn't a 21st century Westerner gaming out of a comfy living room with a soft drink and a slice of pizza would.  There are any number of times where it's not merely the case that the PC should know a key bit of social/cultural information ("Okay, make a roll against your Savoir-Faire skill ... thankew") but would reasonably know it reflexively, and never normally botch or forget it.  None of us need Savoir-Faire/Courtesy/IQ rolls to avoid spitting into open coffins, punching pregnant women in the bellies, saluting the dark skinned archbishop with "Yo, nigga," or failing to understand what the blue-uniformed fellow with the garrison cover, pistol, silver badge and nightstick is.

So I figure it's my duty to double-check when a player commits what I think is so egregious a social blunder -- well, short of the PC being portrayed as an ignorant lout -- that any informed member of the culture would reflexively avoid it, with a phrase along the lines of "You do understand that this is the Queen's throne hall, and her Chancellor is standing right behind you.  Are you sure you want to do that?"

Quote from: Ravenswing;844698...

So I figure it's my duty to double-check when a player commits what I think is so egregious a social blunder -- well, short of the PC being portrayed as an ignorant lout -- that any informed member of the culture would reflexively avoid it, with a phrase along the lines of "You do understand that this is the Queen's throne hall, and her Chancellor is standing right behind you.  Are you sure you want to do that?"

I've long had a section of my house rules which explains that the modern player is guiding the character, but isn't in full possession. If the player says their PC in the fantasy world says "yo nigga", they're trying to project 21st century gangsta slang, which doesn't translate. At most they can give the PC the impulse to be offensive or over-familiar in a cheesy way.

But that's just my preferred GM style. Some people like modernisms in their fantasy games and fiction (e.g. Shrek).

Quote from: jhkim;844633A common issue is if the players are informed, but they have to remember and internalize everything the GM has said. If they don't keep up with the GM, then they are penalized.

I think a useful metric to look at is - how often does an NPC make some social blunder, and offend and/or have to apologize to the PCs? For some GMs, it's almost always the other way - the PCs are the ones who make social blunders, and NPCs are offended.

That's what I'd like to avoid.

To quote an extremely wise person, "shit referee is shit."  And "not gaming is better than bad gaming."

Quote from: jhkim;844633I think a useful metric to look at is - how often does an NPC make some social blunder, and offend and/or have to apologize to the PCs?

Fairly often. Some of the PCs aren't very good at accepting apologies though.

Quote from: Ravenswing;844698So I figure it's my duty to double-check when a player commits what I think is so egregious a social blunder -- well, short of the PC being portrayed as an ignorant lout -- that any informed member of the culture would reflexively avoid it, with a phrase along the lines of "You do understand that this is the Queen's throne hall, and her Chancellor is standing right behind you.  Are you sure you want to do that?"

I think sometimes that even this is too roundabout and it may be better to ask an even more direct question like, "Spitting on the floor of the Queen's throne hall is an extremely rude and insulting gesture. Is rude and insulting what you are trying to do here?"

Quote from: Skarg;844704I've long had a section of my house rules which explains that the modern player is guiding the character, but isn't in full possession. If the player says their PC in the fantasy world says "yo nigga", they're trying to project 21st century gangsta slang, which doesn't translate. At most they can give the PC the impulse to be offensive or over-familiar in a cheesy way.

But that's just my preferred GM style. Some people like modernisms in their fantasy games and fiction (e.g. Shrek).

I tend to mentally translate some of the PC dialog. In part to maintain my own sense of the setting as the GM, in part because some players just aren't good at being both the script writers and actor for their PCs.

Quote from: Bren;844724I think sometimes that even this is too roundabout and it may be better to ask an even more direct question like, "Spitting on the floor of the Queen's throne hall is an extremely rude and insulting gesture. Is rude and insulting what you are trying to do here?"

Yeah. Roundabout warnings usually feel condescending to me.

Among other things, royalty can vary hugely in how they expect to be treated. A Norse king might be mightily impressed by a stranger who grabs his head and holds him underwater when swimming, while a Chinese emperor might be hideously offended by improper stance when bowing.

For me, this brings to mind a different issue, though.

In my experience, there is a common phenomenon where the GM keeps having scenes where the PCs are expected to show deference to NPCs, and the NPCs almost never show deference to them. After a while, the players get tired of this, and their PCs stop showing deference - and then the GM starts escalating warnings and threats to keep them down, eventually coming to a confrontation. The players would genuinely prefer to have a fight rather than keep showing deference.

Quote from: jhkim;844765In my experience, there is a common phenomenon where the GM keeps having scenes where the PCs are expected to show deference to NPCs, and the NPCs almost never show deference to them. After a while, the players get tired of this, and their PCs stop showing deference - and then the GM starts escalating warnings and threats to keep them down, eventually coming to a confrontation. The players would genuinely prefer to have a fight rather than keep showing deference.

I think (in my opinion) that the way to prevent that is to have NPCs of status both higher and lower than the PCs, so the players realize it's a ladder with people both above and below them.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;844813I think (in my opinion) that the way to prevent that is to have NPCs of status both higher and lower than the PCs, so the players realize it's a ladder with people both above and below them.

I think a big problem here is that a lot of GMs have random townsfolk treat even mid-level PCs the way scruffy rootless drifters got treated in the real world instead of how people would realistically treat scruffy rootless drifters (even if the PCs are such) who have the power to level the town with a flick of the wrist or buy every building in it three times over out of petty cash.

Quote from: Daztur;844828I think a big problem here is that a lot of GMs have random townsfolk treat even mid-level PCs the way scruffy rootless drifters got treated in the real world instead of how people would realistically treat scruffy rootless drifters (even if the PCs are such) who have the power to level the town with a flick of the wrist or buy every building in it three times over out of petty cash.

I wonder if it's related to the problem that most people don't realize police as we know them didn't exist in the middle ages.  If this group of six heavily armed goons starts a fight, you and your neighbors are the ones who will have to deal with it.

Quote from: jhkim;844765Yeah. Roundabout warnings usually feel condescending to me.

Roundabout warnings can sound condescending, but that's a separate issue. I want to know does the player want the character to act rude and insulting or is the player confused about the situation. A direct question is more likely to get me a clear answer to that question.

QuoteIn my experience, there is a common phenomenon where the GM keeps having scenes where the PCs are expected to show deference to NPCs, and the NPCs almost never show deference to them.

Perhaps I'm fortunate, but I can't say I've experienced that since high school and even then not from most GMs.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;844813I think (in my opinion) that the way to prevent that is to have NPCs of status both higher and lower than the PCs, so the players realize it's a ladder with people both above and below them.

Agreed. Also this is easier to do in a setting where the PCs have a place and a role in society rather than being a bunch of Clint Eastwood High Plain's Drifter characters transposed to a D&D setting.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;844830I wonder if it's related to the problem that most people don't realize police as we know them didn't exist in the middle ages.  If this group of six heavily armed goons starts a fight, you and your neighbors are the ones who will have to deal with it.

I think it is more an issue of not really thinking about what a level based system would do to society and how it is organized while also ignoring the potential inconsistencies inherent in having a gang of rootless tomb raiders who can level towns with a flick of their wrist or buy entire villages outright from the pocket change they keep in their bags of holding.

Quote from: Skarg;844704I've long had a section of my house rules which explains that the modern player is guiding the character, but isn't in full possession. If the player says their PC in the fantasy world says "yo nigga", they're trying to project 21st century gangsta slang, which doesn't translate. At most they can give the PC the impulse to be offensive or over-familiar in a cheesy way.

Or be dismissed with "Sorry, I don't speak Celtic" as in Doctor Who, The Fires of Pompeii.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;844813I think (in my opinion) that the way to prevent that is to have NPCs of status both higher and lower than the PCs, so the players realize it's a ladder with people both above and below them.

Well, as always, that depends. For a start, we often play in societies where your position on the social ladder is determined by the status of your lord:).
The problem comes when this mixes with the PCs as masterless warriors. If the Referee then plays the NPCs as conscious of their actual social differences, but without accounting for the threat of violence from the PC party, we end up with the characters being at the bottom of the social ladder.
To me, that's only an issue if your PC party can't find a master, or worse, is expected to stay as free mercenaries. Otherwise, it's just a matter of picking a master, impressing him enough and enlisting as a special forces team;).

Quote from: Bren;844913I think it is more an issue of not really thinking about what a level based system would do to society and how it is organized while also ignoring the potential inconsistencies inherent in having a gang of rootless tomb raiders who can level towns with a flick of their wrist or buy entire villages outright from the pocket change they keep in their bags of holding.

Exactly, and this is a huge disconnect.

Can we stipulate, for instance, that you get to keep the throne of a kingdom only for so long as you either have more power than anyone else around, or else have the backing of the ones who do?

Can we likewise stipulate that one element of medieval history we very faithfully reproduce in most fantasy campaigns is that it's a dog-eat-dog world over the next border, and that most monarchs are preoccupied with winning territory (or defending their own territory) from their neighbors?

Great.  Then I stipulate that any fantasy ruler has a vested interest in keeping a tight rein on those madcap adventurers.  They're all loose cannons, they awaken unstoppable demonic nasties as often as they defeat them, they're generally disrespectful and insolent, and for every bunch that you can hire to screw over those Badtopians across the border, there's a band convinced that you need to be taken out.  It's a security headache no monarch needs.

But (you might say), hold on: remember those adventurers?  The ones who can level towns with a flick of their fingers?

Well, okay ... perhaps you have one of those campaigns where the PCs are the Lords of Creation, no mundane force can oppose them, and no ruler dares try.  (I sure as hell don't.)

My answer there is simple: is every ruler in the world stupid?  What is their percentage in ever letting adventurers get that powerful?  Every monarch worth his or her salt would be doing everything either to coopt them or just plain chopping them down while it's still possible to do.

Level based games are some of the hardest to reconcile with internal logic.

Before you even start, you have to figure out your frequency distributions on level capable people versus not on your X, then run it on each level on the Y, break it down by casters and healers..

Then you can start to construct what sort of society could come out of it.

Quote from: LordVreeg;845178Before you even start, you have to figure out your frequency distributions on level capable people versus not on your X, then run it on each level on the Y, break it down by casters and healers.

Alternatively, you can just make up some shit you thought would be fun.

For instance, Dave Arneson's BLACKMOOR had NO Raise Dead spells.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.

So a LOT of players had characters that they'd get to third or fourth or fifth level, and then retire.

Remember the old Judges' Guild stuff with things like the innkeeper was a 3rd level fighter with a +1 axe?  And everybody screamed at how "unrealistic" that was and "adventurers would never do that?"

Happened all the time in Blackmoor.

I've been running in the same world since 1972 and I've never run a frequency distribution on a damn thing.  Because, as Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson both said so many times, "It's just a dumb game."

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;845182Alternatively, you can just make up some shit you thought would be fun.

For instance, Dave Arneson's BLACKMOOR had NO Raise Dead spells.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.

So a LOT of players had characters that they'd get to third or fourth or fifth level, and then retire.

Remember the old Judges' Guild stuff with things like the innkeeper was a 3rd level fighter with a +1 axe?  And everybody screamed at how "unrealistic" that was and "adventurers would never do that?"

Happened all the time in Blackmoor.

I've been running in the same world since 1972 and I've never run a frequency distribution on a damn thing.  Because, as Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson both said so many times, "It's just a dumb game."

Right, early on people had one set of expectations.  I remember playing in the mid 70's.  It was all good then.

But as you can tell by the amount of replies, some GMs and players are looking for more.  Not all.  But some.  So the expectations have totally changed.

I never played with Dave, etc. I've been playing, though since 76.  And some times, things hold together better when you build it right from ground zero.

I will not concede that people want "more" because any sort of qualitative label about gaming preferences gives me explosive flatulence, but I will happily grant that people want "different."

For that matter, more people want different.  Sometime around 1979 or 1980 all the people who really wanted OD&D had it, so the next version was different.  Et al.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;845191I will not concede that people want "more" because any sort of qualitative label about gaming preferences gives me explosive flatulence, but I will happily grant that people want "different."

For that matter, more people want different.  Sometime around 1979 or 1980 all the people who really wanted OD&D had it, so the next version was different.  Et al.

I should have said "More congruence".
Other than that, totally agree.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;845182Alternatively, you can just make up some shit you thought would be fun.

The difficulty arises when you or those you play with consider consistency and coherence part of the fun.

QuoteI've been running in the same world since 1972 and I've never run a frequency distribution on a damn thing.

I've never run a frequency distribution either, but by 1975 or 76 I'd come up with a general idea of what the overall frequency distribution was for my D&D world. The vast majority of the people in the world were first level. Most important NPCs e.g. barons, counts, the local mage or head of a temple (if any) were around 3rd - 7th level. The higher level PCs were one or two levels lower than that.

Quote from: Bren;845295The difficulty arises when you or those you play with consider consistency and coherence part of the fun.

I've never run a frequency distribution either, but by 1975 or 76 I'd come up with a general idea of what the overall frequency distribution was for my D&D world. The vast majority of the people in the world were first level. Most important NPCs e.g. barons, counts, the local mage or head of a temple (if any) were around 3rd - 7th level. The higher level PCs were one or two levels lower than that.

And that counts.

I'm not REALLY thinking most people do a spreadsheet, it's just an exercise in really figuring what the frequency distribution is/would be.
Sounds like you eschewed the zero levels.

What affect did this have on things like healing and disease?  Of these level capable folk, how common was magic?

Quote from: LordVreeg;845297What affect did this have on things like healing and disease?  Of these level capable folk, how common was magic?

It's something I've calculated pretty finely, down to the point where I pretty much know where every NPC wizard (from first-week apprentices on up) in the world lives, to what order they belong and (very roughly) their power level.

For me, that's useful.  My all-mage group spent some time in the birth city of Master Holly, the party's fire wizard, staying with her family.  There are only eleven wizards of journeyman rank or better in the city -- which is no metropolis -- two of them masters.  Looking to pick up some extra coin, they put out their shingles.  One of them has a long-distance communication spell, and found that the only other wizard with that spell was under contract to Holly's grandmother, the city's leading shipbuilder, so he made a tidy sum hiring just that spell out to commercial interests who wanted within-the-hour contact with the national capital.

And so forth.  Following my standard rant on the subject (http://ravenswing59.blogspot.com/2013/09/magic-as-technology-take-ii.html), X number of wizards in a city doesn't translate to X number of wizards available to cater to the PCs' whims.  Of those eleven practicing wizards, one of the Masters juggles being the local guildmaster AND being a full-time enchanter AND doing repair work for the city (she's an Earth wizard).  The other is the Thaumatology Chair at the local university.  Of the nine journeymen, three belong to an order of nautical mages (this being a major port) and are hired out to sea most of the year.  One's the hired wizard to the baroness.  One's a secret agent who keeps a low profile.  One's a just-barely-qualified duffer who does low-level enchantments with the few spells he's got.

For practical purposes, there were only two wizards for hire in the city.  One's a necromancer overwhelmingly favoring spirit spells: if that's your problem, she's your gal.  The other's a generalist with a handful of spells in several different disciplines: a little bit of Knowledge, a little bit of Darkness, a little bit of Plant, a little bit of Spirit.

It's safe to say that the PCs cleaned up a bit.

But anyway, that's the game I play.  Obviously others just want the "eh, whatever, we'll swing with it" approach.  Nothing wrong with that.

Quote from: Ravenswing;845324It's something I've calculated pretty finely, down to the point where I pretty much know where every NPC wizard (from first-week apprentices on up) in the world lives, to what order they belong and (very roughly) their power level.

For me, that's useful.  My all-mage group spent some time in the birth city of Master Holly, the party's fire wizard, staying with her family.  There are only eleven wizards of journeyman rank or better in the city -- which is no metropolis -- two of them masters.  Looking to pick up some extra coin, they put out their shingles.  One of them has a long-distance communication spell, and found that the only other wizard with that spell was under contract to Holly's grandmother, the city's leading shipbuilder, so he made a tidy sum hiring just that spell out to commercial interests who wanted within-the-hour contact with the national capital.

And so forth.  Following my standard rant on the subject (http://ravenswing59.blogspot.com/2013/09/magic-as-technology-take-ii.html), X number of wizards in a city doesn't translate to X number of wizards available to cater to the PCs' whims.  Of those eleven practicing wizards, one of the Masters juggles being the local guildmaster AND being a full-time enchanter AND doing repair work for the city (she's an Earth wizard).  The other is the Thaumatology Chair at the local university.  Of the nine journeymen, three belong to an order of nautical mages (this being a major port) and are hired out to sea most of the year.  One's the hired wizard to the baroness.  One's a secret agent who keeps a low profile.  One's a just-barely-qualified duffer who does low-level enchantments with the few spells he's got.

For practical purposes, there were only two wizards for hire in the city.  One's a necromancer overwhelmingly favoring spirit spells: if that's your problem, she's your gal.  The other's a generalist with a handful of spells in several different disciplines: a little bit of Knowledge, a little bit of Darkness, a little bit of Plant, a little bit of Spirit.

It's safe to say that the PCs cleaned up a bit.

But anyway, that's the game I play.  Obviously others just want the "eh, whatever, we'll swing with it" approach.  Nothing wrong with that.

Well, that's sort of why I tried to standardize the terminology for it.

I think most of us, especially after a while, have to do it to some degree for congruence.  And the more I run games, the more this level of consistency helps everything.  Just calling it the frequency distribution of levels and magic seems to allow us all to kind of talk the same language.

Yours is a perfect example, since that frequency distribution of power and magic allows you to place everyone and the mercantile effects of that small port city.

Quote from: LordVreeg;845297And that counts.

I'm not REALLY thinking most people do a spreadsheet, it's just an exercise in really figuring what the frequency distribution is/would be.
Sounds like you eschewed the zero levels.

What affect did this have on things like healing and disease?  Of these level capable folk, how common was magic?

Mostly I ignored 0-level and treated normal people as D6 hit point people. Mostly I ignored mundane disease since it didn't show up much in inspirational sources like S&S fiction or Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series. Supernatural disease sources were less rare than level drain and neither was something ordinary people would see much of. About like the frequency of ordinary people encountering Nazgul in LotR before the Siege of Gondor.

Almost no one ran cleric PCs so not much magical healing. No raise dead or resurrection. One PC might have been reincarnated, I can't recall for sure. Clerics had religions based on where they were from. The gods were in pantheons with some variation of spells by deity.

A fair number of NPCs who were important would have magic items. But that was determined randomly so it might be magical leather armor or a +1 sword or it was some character appropriate tailored item I made up. One guy rode a wild ox. It wasn't magical though it was unusual. One brother out of a set of five could turn into a swan for some reason fitting some Celtic legend or other.

Quote from: Ravenswing;845324And so forth.  Following my standard rant on the subject (http://ravenswing59.blogspot.com/2013/09/magic-as-technology-take-ii.html), X number of wizards in a city doesn't translate to X number of wizards available to cater to the PCs' whims.  

What, NPCs who have agendas, jobs, and schedules of their own not based on what the players and PCs want right now. How dare they and you. Clearly you sir are another big meanie head, GM.

Quote from: Bren;845344Mostly I ignored 0-level and treated normal people as D6 hit point people. Mostly I ignored mundane disease since it didn't show up much in inspirational sources like S&S fiction or Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series. Supernatural disease sources were less rare than level drain and neither was something ordinary people would see much of. About like the frequency of ordinary people encountering Nazgul in LotR before the Siege of Gondor.

Almost no one ran cleric PCs so not much magical healing. No raise dead or resurrection. One PC might have been reincarnated, I can't recall for sure. Clerics had religions based on where they were from. The gods were in pantheons with some variation of spells by deity.

A fair number of NPCs who were important would have magic items. But that was determined randomly so it might be magical leather armor or a +1 sword or it was some character appropriate tailored item I made up. One guy rode a wild ox. It wasn't magical though it was unusual. One brother out of a set of five could turn into a swan for some reason fitting some Celtic legend or other.

.

Yeah, the NPC healers and their availability has a huge affect on the tone and tenor of the game.    

And what % of the world was 0 level, and what % was level capable?

I forgot to even mention the magic items; good thing you did.  They can totally mess up any idea.

Quote from: LordVreeg;845329Yours is a perfect example, since that frequency distribution of power and magic allows you to place everyone and the mercantile effects of that small port city.

This is what I've worked out for magic distribution, and it plugs in neatly and easily to most campaigns, I figure.

There is one active, practicing mage per 3000 people.  Half of the mages in any district gravitate to the nearest national capital, major city, or large regional capital.  Approximately one mage in ten stays on as a "rural" mage.  The rest practice in towns and cities within their own province.

Of the above total, 40% are apprentices, 10% are senior apprentices, 40% are journeymen, 7% are Masters, and 3% are Senior Masters.  "Senior" apprentices are just wizards who never passed -- or never attempted -- the tests for a journeyman's license; you might get 70 year old "apprentices."  They have to practice under the direction of a journeyman, but otherwise make good livings lending energy to other wizards, assisting with enchantments and doing their magics within collectives.

For the rest, I have percentages based around my various wizardly orders, and leave 15-20% free for regional orders or for situations where one order or another should predominate.

For the aforementioned city, eleven journeymen-plus is pretty light, but it's not the provincial capital (even though it's a larger city), and the national capital is the third largest city in the world and a giant magnet for wizards: it has twenty times the number.

Quote from: LordVreeg;845381And what % of the world was 0 level, and what % was level capable?

I assumed everyone was capable. They just lacked the interest and opportunity.

Quote from: Bren;845413I assumed everyone was capable. They just lacked the interest and opportunity.

Interesting take.
MY OSR d20 games are sort of based on the fact that the 'level capable' are slightly different.  I mainly use these rules for very bronze age, heroic games.  It makes more sense to me when only a small proportion of the populace are touched by the gods.

My main fantasy games are skill based, so that everyone gains experience in what they are good at

Quote from: Bren;845295The difficulty arises when you or those you play with consider consistency and coherence part of the fun.

I've never run a frequency distribution either, but by 1975 or 76 I'd come up with a general idea of what the overall frequency distribution was for my D&D world. The vast majority of the people in the world were first level. Most important NPCs e.g. barons, counts, the local mage or head of a temple (if any) were around 3rd - 7th level. The higher level PCs were one or two levels lower than that.

Well, I actually got my BA in medieval history, so I can keep my world more or less running pretty easily.  I've always been more interested in how the world runs than my players have.  Converting coinage in my world to pence, shillings, and pounds was a failure.  Everybody hated it but me.

I don't have to run faster than the Balrog, I only have to run faster than the player characters.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;845422Converting coinage in my world to pence, shillings, and pounds was a failure.  Everybody hated it but me.

Of course pence, shillings, and pounds is a big simplification from historical currency (and I use the term currency loosely), so I can see why some players might disapprove of that, but using pence, shillings, and librum was one of the many things I liked about Pendragon.

QuoteI don't have to run faster than the Balrog, I only have to run faster than the player characters.

Indeed. It's why I never ran a PC who wore plate armor. You don't have to be faster than the gargoyles, wights, and wraiths, you just have to be faster than the dwarf or the heavy armored foot. One of the reasons my original D&D character survived and prospered was because, as an elf, he was as fast or faster than everyone else in the party (including the mule).

The analogy meaning, of course, that I don't have to know everything about the entire world, I just need to know more than the players.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;845433The analogy meaning, of course, that I don't have to know everything about the entire world, I just need to know more than the players.

I knew what you meant. I just like mentioning running away as an option since we used it a lot at low levels in OD&D to escape from monsters we couldn't beat or didn't want to fight. From many other threads, 'run away' seems to be a strategy that never occurs to some players. Does no one learn life lessons from Monty Python and the Holy Grail? anymore? Kids the Holy Grail isn't just for quoting random bits to derail an RPG session. Brave, Brave Sir Robin is the model for a first level character in the dungeon.

Heh, I think a lot of gamers would benefit from some action in a large combat LARP.  I can think of a number of times where I ran away or played dead, often sparked by that feeling I'd suddenly get in my gut: "Damn, the bad guys are ten seconds away from overrunning us."

I admit part of it had to do with me being the game's most powerful healer -- even if I was the only PC left alive, as long as I was stealthy and patient, I could raise a whole heap of dead -- but I managed to survive four TPKs (two with over a hundred PCs dead) that way.  Dragging other people away from a losing cause wasn't popular, and I wound up using a reasonably effective line a few times: "You're not going to rescue our buddies by adding our bodies to the heap.  You're going to rescue them by us getting back to where we can rally a force large enough to kick bad guy ass."

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;845433The analogy meaning, of course, that I don't have to know everything about the entire world, I just need to know more than the players.

"The 'Illusion of Preparedness' is critical for immersion; allowing the players to see where things are improvised or changed reminds them to think outside the setting, removing them forcibly from immersion. Whenever the players can see the hand of the GM, even when the GM needs to change things in their favor; it removes them from the immersed position. The ability to keep the information flow even and consistent to the players, and to keep the divide between prepared information and newly created information invisible is a critical GM ability."

I'm with you.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;845422Well, I actually got my BA in medieval history, so I can keep my world more or less running pretty easily.  I've always been more interested in how the world runs than my players have.  Converting coinage in my world to pence, shillings, and pounds was a failure.  Everybody hated it but me.
.

History BA as well here (different area of focus though). This last bit is something I noticed in my own gaming as an important observation. I used to bring a lot more historical realism to my campaigns because that is a lot of fun for me personally, but on several occasions this backfired. In one instance I had an Middle East inspired campaign that was too historical to be familiar (they wanted the 7th Voyage of Sinbad but they got The Muqaddimah with footnotes). I toned down my historical realism for that group after that. Something similar happened to be not so long ago as well, where I realized the group I was running the game for wanted more real history than my previous group, but not as much as I ended up giving them. Now I try to read the group. I can spend a lot of time looking up little details regarding aspects of the setting in play. This is great if your players want that, but if they want more of a Robert E. Howard experience, I've learned that there is fun throwing history to the wind and letting your imagination have free reign.

Quote from: LordVreeg;845498"The 'Illusion of Preparedness' is critical for immersion; allowing the players to see where things are improvised or changed reminds them to think outside the setting, removing them forcibly from immersion. Whenever the players can see the hand of the GM, even when the GM needs to change things in their favor; it removes them from the immersed position. The ability to keep the information flow even and consistent to the players, and to keep the divide between prepared information and newly created information invisible is a critical GM ability."

I'm with you.

Indeed. If I thought the GM has prepared anything special, I'd be totally pulled out of immersion.
So I just trust them to be improvising:).
I'm with you as well.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;845500History BA as well here (different area of focus though). This last bit is something I noticed in my own gaming as an important observation. I used to bring a lot more historical realism to my campaigns because that is a lot of fun for me personally, but on several occasions this backfired. In one instance I had an Middle East inspired campaign that was too historical to be familiar (they wanted the 7th Voyage of Sinbad but they got The Muqaddimah with footnotes). I toned down my historical realism for that group after that. Something similar happened to be not so long ago as well, where I realized the group I was running the game for wanted more real history than my previous group, but not as much as I ended up giving them. Now I try to read the group. I can spend a lot of time looking up little details regarding aspects of the setting in play. This is great if your players want that, but if they want more of a Robert E. Howard experience, I've learned that there is fun throwing history to the wind and letting your imagination have free reign.

I'm not a historian, but found once that the game I'm running is too historical for the players' tastes.
I found other players;).

I don't mind knowing the GM is improvising. The only thing there that seems to affect my enjoyment is that the improv make sense. There are just some things I know were likely not prepared in advance (for example when a particularly curious player asks the innkeeper probing questions about the furnishings (I.e. The teakwood for the chairs is imported from the Red Goblin Forest and crafted by Morik down the road. Why yes Morik has three daughters and one son.).

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;845507I don't mind knowing the GM is improvising. The only thing there that seems to affect my enjoyment is that the improv make sense. There are just some things I know were likely not prepared in advance (for example when a particularly curious player asks the innkeeper probing questions about the furnishings (I.e. The teakwood for the chairs is imported from the Red Goblin Forest and crafted by Morik down the road. Why yes Morik has three daughters and one son.).

the secret here is not that improv is in any way bad.  We all do it all the time as GMs.  Have to.

A good GM keeps the world consistent enough that players don't notice when the GM is working from actual notes, from extrapolated knowledge, or just improv creating.  Because if the players can't tell and aren't even looking for it, just taking all the world you are spinning as a whole, then they stay more in the immersed position.
If they can tell when they've driven the game somewhere strange, and they actively know you are making everything up, even if it is cool, they are in a less immersed position.

Which is always a goal for me, at least.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;845507I don't mind knowing the GM is improvising. The only thing there that seems to affect my enjoyment is that the improv make sense.

Everyone who has ever GMed for any length of time knows that GMs either improvise stuff now and then or everything grinds to a complete and utter halt about three times a session. I expect the GM to improvise some of the time. It's part of the GM's role. The key is, as Brendan says, that the improv make sense, fit the setting, etc. It's nice if the GM can improvise smoothly, but its not necessary since we all should know it happens.