The players control the fiction by what they have their characters (try to) do.
But on your own account this isn't true. Because the GM can always narrate something else. As you're presenting it, all the players get to do is make suggestions that the GM may or may not follow up on.
I suppose another way a GM might have handled a success roll would be to have the PCs find some financial papers in the desk that weren't incriminating at all.
How is that possiby a success, given the declared action? It's obviously a failure - the PC has not got what s/he wanted (namely, incriminating financial documents).
pemerton said:
Why would the GM know any better than the players what is good for the fiction?
Why wouldn't she? And sometimes she'll be right, and sometimes she won't; and the same can be said for the players.
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Isn't a GM allowed to have an occasional cool idea and throw it in? Or supply a twist?
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what about unintended and-or unexpected results? Are these not allowed?
So when do the players get to override the GM because they might know better than him/her as to what is good for the fiction? When do the players get to throw in their cool ideas and twists and unexpecgted results?
If the answer is
never, then I come back to my question - why does the GM get special status here?
Whereas I have an obvious answer to the questions I've posed - when the check succeeds the player decides, when the check fails the GM decides. It's so simple it's elegant! And it doesn't exclude any possibilities - the players are free to declare the full range of possible actions, the GM is free to narrate the full range of possible failures.
What it
does exclude is the GM getting to decide whatever s/he wants. Which brings us back to the question - why shouldn't the GM be constrainted? All the other participants are.
A simple counter-example to establish this point. Suppose a player says, "I search the room for 1000 gold". He rolls a 1. Do you really consider a possible fail state in this example to be "you find a ruby worth 1000gp"? If you think that's a valid failure narration then you stand alone.
So then with it established that there are multiple success states, why would a DM pick the one that a player didn't specifically request. A few possibilities:
1. His chosen success may move the story further along at some later point in time.
2. His chosen success may not interfere with already established fiction wheras the players precise request could.
3. It saves time. If the player asks to find 1000 gold and you say you don't and then he follows up with what do I find and you make him roll and tell him it was a 1000gp worth ruby anyways, then there was no fictional need for that additional exchange.
There's countless other reasons to still fulfill the players intent but slightly alter their specified outcome.
Some other posters have already explained how finding a ruby can be a failure. Here's another way: the PC is searching for gold pieces because only gold pieces can lift the curse of the whatever-it-is (I'm imagining some variant of the gem-crushing gargoyle in ToH). Finding a ruby is a, in that circumstance, a failure - although maybe if the PC can make it to a gem market and cash in the ruby s/he can get some or even all of the gold s/he needs.
As to your possibilities:
(1) I don't really see how this can be known in advance unless the GM has already plotted the story out. Which maybe s/he has, but then that brings us back to the question of what the role of the players is in relation to the fiction.
(2) This has been dealt with ad nauseum by [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] and by me. If the action declaration would violate the established ficiotn then that should alreayd have been sorted out. Furthremore, this is not particularly a GM function. I mean, the GM's narration of the ruby could negate some prioer fiction to if the GM is careless (eg maybe the PCs already scanned the area with a gem detection spell and it registed no gems). So all-in-all this particular possibility is a red herring.
(3) I don't understand this at all. If the GM tells the player the PC fails to find 1000 gp then why is the player then making a check? What is the check for? And if this check whose purpose I don't understand is successful, what is the reason for telling the player that the PC finds a 1000 gp instead of the 1000 gp s/he was looking for.
Can a single fantasy author write a story about a character that is legitimately challenged?
Not in the way that I and (I believe) [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] are talking about. An author can write about a character's struggle with identity and responsibility (think eg about JRRT's account of Aragorn's self-doubt after the Fellowship leaves Lorien). But that is not playing a game. The author wasn't challenged except in the sense that authoring can be a difficult thing.
In a RPG we are talking about the player inhabiting the role of the PC and playing through the challenge.
If that's your definition of roleplaying then I don't think it applies to D&D. Players in D&D simply state attempted actions - they don't suggest things that might be true. They simply state attempted actions. They don't negotiate with the other participants to determine their truth. They have predetermined that the DM will be sole arbitrator of what's true in the game.
Stating an attempted action
is suggesting something to be true in the fiction - namely, that the PC performs the actin as described! That's the whole starting point for the OP of this thread.
Your claim that the GM always decides in D&D is obviously very controversial But even at those tables where it is true, it doesn't follow that the GM never considers what it is that the players have suggested.
Acting is not roleplaying.
Someone upthread used method acting as either an example of, or an analogy to, roleplaying, so I'm not sure what you assert here is uncontroversial.
But if acting is not roleplaying, then where does the roleplaying consist of in a game in which the GM decides all the outcomes? What are the players doing in such a game other than some improv acting?
I am perfectly capable of figuring out who my character is and how he thinks and feels etc.
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Is it possible that you just find it easier to roleplay in games you like?
To echo [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], the point is not that people like what they like. The point is that some systems make possible certain experiences that others don't.
I'll give an example from a slightly different field of hobby: I don't believe that it is possible to get the same thrill from swimming laps in a pool as it is to get from catching a wave at a beach. That's not a criticism of lap-swimming or a praise of beaches - taking that extra step would require deciding whether or not we like the thrill (some do, but not everybody does).
Now maybe there's someone out there who finds lap swimming really thrilling.I guess that's conceivable. But I would want pretty good evidence before I contemplated this possibility in a serious way. Because it is very much at odds with my own experiences and obvservations of both lap swimmers and body surfers.
In RPGing, not every system can produce the same experience. In Rolemaster, when the first crit die is rolled, there is a sense of thrill and antiipation that cannot be achieved in an AD&D combat when the first damage die is rolled vs anything much bigger than a gnoll. Becuase in RM everyone knows that if that crit die comes up high, the combat is over; wheres in AD&D that combat can't be finished by the first damage roll.
And turning from combat to other domains of struggle, a typical AD&D game can't produce the sort of experience in relation to charavter that is being discussed here, because the typical AD&D game has neither the formal rules nor the informal practices necessary to bring the right sort of pressure to bear on the player in the play of his/her PC. For instance, there is no way to put family relationships in jeopardy beyond either GM stipulation or consensus roleplaying - unless (as I think I mentioned upthread) one uses the honour and family rules from Oriental Adventures. While there is plenty of
fail this check and your PC willl be hurt bad physically there's almost no way, in typical AD&D sans OA, to generate
fail this check and your PC will be hurt emotionally - for instance, because his/her family rejects him/her. Unless the GM just stipulates that outcome, which isn't very dramatic in the context of playing a game.
I'm looking at an individual level and saying those mechanics hinder my roleplaying
Do you accept that there is a difference between assertions grounded on experience and assertions grounded in mere conjecture?
