I think I follow you, but, isn't the complete lack of anything like a diplomacy check a case of a rule filtering out the proposition?
I'm inclined to agree that if the rules don't provide a 'move' then you can't directly reference the move, which is interesting and something I'm going to have to think about. But the reverse is not true. Just because the rules provide a 'move' doesn't mean that the table's proposition filter allows you to directly access the move without indicating the specific fictional positioning you are taking up.
However, 1e AD&D did have a diplomacy check and at times I used it as one. 1e AD&D had a reaction test, which could be made more generic than its specifically called out usages. And further, remember that most 1e AD&D tables improvised some sort of skill check at least some of the time as an ad hoc ruling. The most common of which was rolling an ability score or below. This procedure wasn't explicitly laid out in the rules, but it does critically show up in published examples of play - those modules that I was talking about. So conceivably you could have "old skool" tables where it was a valid proposition that a GM would have acted on for a player to declare, "I want to make a charisma test to convince the guard to let us through the gate after dark." Whether a GM allowed that, or whether they would have done something like my preferred procedure of RP in character first to earn your fortune test, or whether they would tend to prefer a procedure of IC conversation only, or whether they accept as valid a proposition like, "I try to convince the guard to open the postern gate by explaining we are on an important mission for the temple." is not something that the rules of the game really specified. It was up to the DM to decide what the proposition filter would be.
And frankly, it still is. That hasn't changed at all despite changes in the rules.
It's certainly not impossible to play PF that way, it's just /also/ possible to just use the skill checks and fill in the details after the check determines success/failure.
Yes, but as I just outlined, it was possible to play that way in 1e AD&D as well and I saw example of it - not used consistently, but certainly examples - as far back as the late '80s.
One issue you run into when DMs start talking about why a system "doesn't let them" do something or "doesn't support the style," is not because it in any way prevents it, but because it also offers alternatives that are so much easier or better that /they can't keep their players on the reservation/.
I don't have much sympathy for a DM that can't run his own table.
Doesn't that include the "Caller?" I've never seen anyone play with a caller - usually all I get if I mention the concept is blank looks. Or is it the Party A/B example? (Where everyone in party A's name started with A... easy to follow if nothing else.)
It's the example that's been retro named something like "The Monastery of the Order of Crimson Monks" or something of the sort. The one with the map.
Yes, it does have a caller, but if you look at the example of play Gygax only addresses the caller when the group is taking an action as whole (like do we go down this corridor and in what marching order). When individuals take individual actions, then Gygax doesn't insert the caller in between himself and the player, and instead goes through proposition->fortune->result loops directly with that player.
And this is genius, and I never understood how genius ("Why do we need a caller? I've never needed a caller!") this was until about 20 years later when I actually ran a group of 10-12 strangers. Suddenly you realize as a DM, "We need a caller." One of my biggest revelations about play in the last 20 years is that quantity has a quality all its own. I mean I always knew this in general, but I'd never really appreciated how it impacted game style and even game goals.