*nods*

Yep, that's exactly where I take the road less traveled. The one with the sign that reads, "Barony of Chad. Distance: whatever the plot requires".

I find it amazing that you guys can play a game for 4 or 6 or more hours and have 100% immersion 100% of the time. Never once are you in a position where you and your character are not doing something and the GM is RPing with someone else that they can never glance at you and say give me a name or a quirk. Also amazing that you guys have these super GMs that have the life paths and detailed background of every single person that your characters lay their eyes on. I must be missing out.

It's not a question of "perfect scores", it's a question of where I spend my GM resources. I would rather the players put their efforts into direction and character than ask them for information I don't have. If they want to add stuff, great, but it's just one more thing that lessens the suspension of disbelief. I'm not going for 100% all the time, that's impossible, but just because it is, dosen't make it any less worth while persuing.

I think I get where you're coming from, Chad, but your arguement(?), to me, reads a little like "one more crack in the armor won't make a difference". To that, I'd agree with Jinx's position of "just because you can't do it doesn't mean you shouldn't make every effort"... ...if that's what you're going for.

Honestly, my games probably aren't that "immersive" (at least not in the sense that it seems to be discussed here). For me, the reason I don't personally like the idea we're kicking around is more a matter of setting integrity. Not so much straining "immersion" as "suspension of disbelief". I tend to find settings more consistent with a single arbiter of what "is". This may be purely my perception and doesn't apply to anyone else - but I don't think that makes it a less valid opinion.

I guess it also depends on the kind of game you're playing - I'm generally addressing my "default". If I went into a game with the foreknowledge that everyone was going to be actively creating aspects of the world as we go, I think that could be a lot of fun - it's just not my de facto approach. I suppose that's an important qualifier.

~PS

Sushi, you can always veto if the player says something like: "What strikes me about Baron von Badass is that he's a dual-wielding lycanthrope assassin with a Spelljammer star destroyer and the Hand of Vecna."

Although actually, if one of my players ever said something like that, I'd probably roll with it, because that sounds like crazy fun.

Normally players insinuate things like the NPC they just encountered is a rival from their backstory, or comes from a clan or nationality their character despises... pretty pedestrian stuff, and it often yields a good plot hook that they find engaging for their PC.

Right, and that's a decent caveat, but there is a kind of truth here that songwriting has taught me: once you start to go down a road, it tends to color how you think about it whether it is rewritten or not. It's like erasing pencil from a sheet of paper - there are often still hints of what was once there - even it was only there for a moment.

But I don't disagree. That's a reasonable assertion.

~PS

I tried the "tell me what you see" tactic a few times, very skeptically. Looking back, I wish I'd started sooner for a few reasons.

First, no matter how much of my A game I bring, the players will always remember the stuff they made more. I'm willing to trade immersion for buy-in, because in the long run, I get more immersion as a return on investment. They'll remember and pay more attention to the details they add than anything I put in a player handout.

Second, it lets me delegate a lot of low-level detail and spend more time on important stuff. If my plot needs the party to meet the Duke's courier, it doesn't really matter if he or she is tall, short, blonde, bald, elven, gnomish, or a dwarf. What matters is it's the Duke's courier and the players have some hook they'll remember them by.

Third is something you can only use once in a while. It can be a great bluff that will instantly get attention when it's revealed. That throw-away stableboy they "created" when they got to town? Two scenes later they find out he just fled on one of their horses with their MacGuffin. Some nobody they didn't look at an hour ago just went straight to the top of their "People We Have To Stomp On" list. The idea that you, the DM, may have put one over on them will set that hook better than anything you can buy at Bass Pro Shops.

Don't worry. Someday you might be this good.

At least I've seen the movie.

I would be very surprised if anyone on this forum hadn't.