Hey, it says the GM establishes the target roll. That clearly implies that the GM gets to have a say on how likely the PC is to find what they're looking for. No ignoring of rules text is required to make that statement.
Yes. Its says the GM sets the DC, and gives examples. It doesn't say that the GM
first gets to decide if cheap guns are available at a good price, and if s/he decides that they're not then the check automatically fails.
The point of the skill is to give the players a (potentially risky, because illicit) pathway to getting the things they need to succeed at the sorts of adventures that Traveller (at least in its classic incarnation) encourages.
Streetwise is part of the character makeup but, regardless of how the GM adjudicates its usage, you apparently see it's usage as the player affecting the setting directly and I see its usage as the player affecting the setting through the character.
I see it's usage as the player affecting the setting directly because the player, through a successful roll, can make it true that high quality guns are available at a low price. This is not something that the
character is making true.
Its existence in the game (somewhere) is mechanically determined by there being a Paladin (somewhere) who has just reached 4th-level.
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All the player does is trigger it.
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The player doesn't put it there, the game does.
Huh? The player triggers it. That's [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s point.
If the game has "Bond points" or OGL Conan-style "fate points" then all the player does is trigger them. "The game" puts them there, via the rules for awarding them.
I'd say you're talking about what I'd call "Entitled GM Games" - which are a subset of Trad RPGs. In an Entitled GM Game the GM has the sole right and responsibility to determine the setting and anything the players are permitted to know about the setting must come through and be approved by the GM. The characters have no knowledge of the world they live in that allows them to act with confidence unless such has first been approved by the GM. They have no bounds of expertise that live anywhere except on their character sheet. They do not live in their worlds so much as they have been inserted there as near-blank slates, having fallen through from another world; their knowledge of the world they live in is starkly limited.
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The difference is on expectation. Whether the players are expected to contribute and it is expected that the world and setting are shared or whether it's purely owned by the GM. Indeed that's a big part of why games that have GMs have them.
The argument here is whether we have Entitled GMing and that it's the GM's world and the GM's story to which the players are graciously permitted to contribute, or whether the game belongs to the table as a whole - and while the GM has the final authority it is expected that they use this sparingly and the setting comes from the combined contributions of all the people in the game.
I think this is nicely put.
I've said time and again that I am discussing how the game rules were written by design
The idea that the GM has sole authority over the introduction of story elements, once the players have built their PCs in accordance with the rules, is not stated in any AD&D book I know, nor in Moldvay Basic, nor in Traveller.
The AD&D PHBs (Gygax's and Cook's) talk about the players playing their characters, and using their character's abilities, but they do not say that the players may not suggest story elements to go along with it, and Gygax's PHB expressly contemplates player authorship of PC backstory. Nor do these books tell the GM not to have regard to player desires in answering questions about the content of the shared fiction.
How would any of the posters involved in this discussion handle the following situations?
Upthread I had some discussion with [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION] about the difference between the door open/shut case, in which the issue of fictional content is intimately bound up with action resolution, and the bearded NPC case, which is not bound up with action resolution.
Your examples are both about action resolution, namely, escaping.
They also involve introducing very improbable story elements, unlike either a bearded man (assuming that the setting does not have strong conventions around being clean-shaven) or boxes or similar rubbish in an alley.
I can't imagine a player suggesting either of the things you suggest, so don't have a view on how I would respond as a GM. If either thing came up, there would be bigger matters to handle as a GM than this particular episode of action resolution. For instance, there is a strong implication that neither player really wants to play a fantasy RPG along the lines I'm running.