Re: [BNW] Meta-Plot vs Static world

["g. m." <gm1970@hotmail.com>]

>If I don't KNOW the answer to the #$%$#% question, I will not be able to 
>develop a coherent response to my players inquiries.

But you know the answer: People in the BNW World (is that redundant?) *don't 
know where the powers come from either*. All they know is that you have a 
near-death experience of some sort, and bam, you're a Delta. 
Congratulations. A Delta has a near-death experience and might become an 
Alpha, but that hasn't happened since Chi-town went boom. The best and 
brightest scientific minds in the BNW world have worked on this since the 
first known Delta appeared, and they haven't figured it out yet. Kinda like 
nobody knew how gravity worked until Newton took a bonk on the head. What's 
wrong with telling your players that? That's all their characters would 
know. They, as players, don't need any more explination than that. Let them 
look into it if they want. But let them run into the same blind alleys that 
all the great scientific minds run down, unless they're a genius, and then 
just limit the number of alleys. The best and brightest minds are working on 
it and are drawing blanks. Feel free to try, but most have given up the 
search.

Again, the question you dodged: Why do your players need to know where their 
characters powers "really" come from, before they would discover it in the 
campagin in character?

>If they investigate some portion of it I am left flapping in the breeze. 
>Sure, they haven't gotten too deep yet. HOWEVER, I simply will not dead-end 
>them with the only reason being "No, I really don't have the answer yet, so 
>nothing you try is going to work." It's called GM caveat and I absolutely 
>detest using it.

Wow, you've always covered every contingency for your campagins, and never 
had your players blind-side you by going into left field leaving you to 
either wing it or say "Guys, let's put that part off for a week so I can 
work on it, as I didn't expect you to go that route?"

>Player comes up with a great, out-of-left-field, idea that blind-sides me, 
>(and most probably my NPCs) and could work, if I had any idea what it could 
>uncover. But since I haven't decided I have to kludge an answer, and I 
>punch a hole in my own continuity....
>No, I didn't give away any secrets to my players. They found a vague spot 
>in my description of how something works,

And their characters would have the answer to that vague area "how?"

>and so they were pursuing it doggedly, and were forcing me to make 
>decisions on the 'mystery'. So I stopped and said "this is just vague 
>because I haven't worked out all the depth yet. So we can keep going and I 
>will decide as we go... or you can cut it loose a bit and I will work it 
>out more coherently". See WE are trying to tell a story. It's not my plot 
>or my world or my secrets. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. which is why I never use GM 
>caveat to save some pet plot I have.

Nor should you, but it sounds like your *players* wanted some info about 
your world that their *characters* would not have access to, and instead of 
telling them that "Your characters don't know" you opted to tell them the 
"secret" to get them to stop asking. That's the perception, which could be 
wrong, but that's how it's comming accross.

--
GAry m, minor epot
   aka "Sneezy the Squid" · www.geocities.com/sneezythesquid
------------------------------
If life is a lesson, it's a crash course.
   - Derek Lin

DNRC Member since 1995 · ICQ#: 8391493 · #dragoncon on DALnet mIRC

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