> Even when the player proposes to do something
> nonsensical, "you can't do that" is never an ideal
> response; it stops the flow. By keeping the
> exchange going, the GM and player can work
> together to find something the character wants
> to do that does feel credible and appropriate to
> the type of story at hand.
This "yes, but how?" or "yes, and" technique is frighteningly effective and empowering, and I've put it to good use even in traditional RPGs. My favourite example of this was in Call Of Cthulhu, after playing HeroQuest.
The party need to find some stuff in a Library. This fell under Library Use, obviously to anyone who's played CoC.
When the player botched his Library Use roll, I said, "Well, you find the rare book you're looking for, but it took two extra hours, and you had to sneak into the rare books archive behind the Librarian's back. She's now looking at you extremely suspiciously and disapprovingly."
This spun off an amusing and pleasant sub-plot that involved smoothing things over with the Librarian, enriching play wonderfully.
If you have Hairdressing 18W2, then the obvious way you'd blow up the moon is to become the hairdresser to Colonel Tracy Timms, ubercommander in charge of Lunar Outfitting, woo Col Timms through your expert hairdressing skill as an in, and arrange to have those warheads sent to Lunar Base One in preparation for the oncoming War With Mars matched with live, timed detonators, and then Boom! Score Major Victory for the Marsies!
(Implicating Col Timms in the mess, and don't think Timms is going to forget /that/ any time soon...)
-- V.
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