Yet this objective is not stated anywhere. The AD&D PHB says this about the objective of D&D (pp 7, 8, 18):
Challenging and using metrics to test role playing as games are designed to do is the basis of all role playing games. The quote you give is Gygax's point of view, but there is no contradiction here.
CUT
...just as actual paying experience really increases paying skill. Imagination, intelligence, problem solving ability, and memory are all continually exercised by participants in the game. . . .
D&D as a code breaking game (the very act of game play) tests all these areas of players' actual performances as they play the game. How on earth can one do this in "the fiction" - the non-game portion of storygames except ironically? Knowing that none of it has any game design behind it? For me this is a smoking gun quote.
The objective that this present is one of increasing your character's power by successfully and skilfully meeting the challenges posed by the game (through the medium of the Dungeon Master). Class dictates the role adopted to meet those challenges, but there is no suggestion that class either (i) changes the nature of the challenges, nor (ii) determines what counts as successfully meeting them. And the DMG experience rules are class-neutral (ie all classes equally gain experience for defeating monsters and for findng treasure).
Yes, AD&D's DMG guidelines sometimes needed more baking in the oven. It's too uniform in XP rewards for the classes. Thankfully they aren't the rules of the game no matter what attempt to make them so for convention tournament purposes in the Introduction (or was it Foreward?).
I think that Gygax and Moldvay are better authorities than you as to what RPGing really is about, or how classic D&D is meant to be played. Neither you nor anyone else is under any obligation to follow their advice, but you can't just ignore what they wrote while setting yourself up as some authority on the true nature of the game.
Gygax told people to fudge their die rolls in AD&D. You can do this in wargames too. How about during a tournament of world class players? How about a Vegas craps rolls for money?
People knew and know there is bad advice in some of those books. Some advice which simply stems from misunderstanding in a confusing hobby. Advice to run a game brokenly is not evidence the "true game" is a "and then just make it up" story game. It's evidence of bad advice obviously contrary to the whole design effort. Why write 100,000s of words and then say "Nobody needs any of this"? That isn't his message. He's openly suggesting cheating to make the game more fun when players are struggling. He's isn't admitting to what he was openly against, treating the game as he called a "theatre game"
With respect, this is all just verbiage. I'm not sure that "conformed to the players' description based on what the game can do in its preset design" is even a meaningful phrase of English. I certainly don't know what it means. (For a start, the game can't do anything - it is neither an agent nor a machine.)
If you don't care to learn, I cannot help you. I'm not here to "convince" you, but inform you. Go back, break down the very important elements of what I just told you, the very answers to your questions, and we can continue. What do you understand? What don't you?
I presented a concrete ingame situation:
...
You have not explained how either situation is to be adjudicated
I just answered quite succinctly. Reread it, as it is core to the design of the game.
The idea that all this must be created before play is absurd. How many adventures have been written in which there are tables with mugs on them? Hundreds, probably thousands? How many of those adventures specified rules for breaking the mugs in question? Few or none. But since 1974 it has been a completely legitimate action declaration for a player to say "I throw the mug to the ground so that it shatters and makes a bang". How is the success of that action to be determined? In OD&D and B/X there are no rules. In AD&D the GM has to choose whether to use the "fall", "normal blow" or "crushing blow" column of the item saving throw table (on DMG p 80 - another counter-example to your claim upthread that this is all about AC and hit points), to decide whether the character's to hit and/or damage bonus for STR is a penalty to the saving throw, etc.
All modules require the DM to convert them prior to play. That means change the adventure to fit what the rules can do, the scope of the code, prior to play. Your demand of absurdity is flying in the face of innumerable books which support the act of what I'm saying. Not "powers" books in 3ed (some in even 2e). Rather books and adventure modules that even give example new rules when they present new materials (e.g. monsters, treasure, traps, etc.)
As [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] has stated upthread, the whole premise of an RPG is that the players aren't limited in their action declarations to certain preset moves.
The "whole premise" of an RPG is players can score points for their role playing in a game. That players are limited to their current creative skill marks the boundaries they have. Like people's real world strength or speed. D&D is a design test to give resistance (complex codes) to those who want to improve their actual creativity and imagination. Playing it does so like sports have designs which test and improve one's athleticism.
And the GM is expected to adjudicate novel action declarations as part-and-parcel of running the game. Many players of RPGs call this aspect of GMing "improvisation". Being able to do it effectively is a core GMing skill.
The GM checks the map, sees if the player's piece can perform the action according to the design, makes the movement whatever the result, and describes these results back to the player(s). That's D&D. DMs are
NEVER to improvise. This is essential to the playing of an RPG. It is essential to even a game be a game.
H&W99, why do you think that Gygax would be "mocked" for claiming that RPG's need some sort of random determiner of events, typically dice?
Because he knew none of the dice rolls in D&D were resolution mechanics. They are expressions of the game design. Randomizers aren't necessary for games which use resolution mechanics. The Jenga tower isn't a randomizer for example.