How serious should a game be? How true is the story that’s been told? How important is it to do what my character would do?

I think coherent storytelling and character exploration is both fun and important to playing TTRPGs. I do my best to keep the fiction straight, rely context when making choices as GM, NPC, and of course as player.

But never to the detriment of the group. As important a strong narrative can be, the comfort of everyone involved is always more important. Sometimes it’s worth to retcon something, to change an established fact or detail for the sake of a player. Maybe a darker story beat came a bit too close to someone’s personal life, or maybe it was just a backstory detail that doesn’t work anymore and needs to be adjusted.

It’s fine to change facts. It’s just a game after all. It’s great if we can get lost in the story and the characters, but sometimes things don’t add up or feel right after the fact. Sometimes we should take a step back and think about what’s going on and whether we need to adjust some of it.

I have retconned events as GM at times, and I have always been open about it. On occasion, between sessions and after some time of reflection, it occurred to me that a story detail I introduced doesn’t really fit or make as much sense as first thought. Or, perhaps, a player approached me asking about a change for some reason. And if it’s something personal, I simply listen, no questions asked. I just tell my players, “Hey, we have to retcon something here.”

And even outside of the story, sometimes it’s fine to change up something that happened in a fight because a player forget about something important. Usually, I don’t retcon too much during a fight to keep things moving, and just figure out a way to adjust things within reason. Once in a while, though, a player or enemy trait or ability would make too much of a difference, it’s worth reevaluating the situation. And that’s fine, too. These are complex games, getting things wrong is assumed. But they are just games in the end.

Retcons are a great tool to keep everyone comfortable and happy, and to keep the narrative coherent in especially complicated adventures or campaigns.