The Crimson Binome
Hero
That's a good point. It seems like a logical extension of the Anthropic Principle, though; if we want to tell a story about characters X Y Z, then the DM creates a world which conspires for X Y Z to be in the right place at the right time. With an infinite number of worlds that could exist, in every conceivable configuration, it's not a mark against any one world that we happen to be interested in watching it.To me that is still metagame - for instance, why is it a human cleric of Pelor rather than a dwarven assassin who is in the right place at the right time? Not because of any working out of internal world-logic, but because a player wanted to play one sort of character rather than another!
For my current game? Yes, no, no - yes because it's part of the "cold weather clothing", and no because they're not explicitly written down on my character sheet. I also have four belt pouches, two sacks, four days of trail rations, and 50 feet of silk rope. And as inconvenient as it might sometimes be, to write all of that down, it seems preferable to the alternative of just making it up on the spot. If I don't have that rope written down, accounting for its weight and everything, then I won't think of using it because it's not part of my mental image of the scene.I can easily imagine this. Think about whether or not your PC has socks, or a handkerchief, or a lock of hair from his/her childhood sweetheart. I think in most games I've played PC equipment lists have not been specified to such a level of detail.
For similar reasons, I can't play Feng Shui and drop a chandelier that wasn't explicitly mentioned to be there, because my mind is resistant to making up meaningful facts - especially if they would favor me - without evidence for them.
So you give up on the DM playing fairly, assume that the DM will be adversarial (or covertly blocking), and work up a meta-game method of bypassing that? It seems like a case of going to far in pursuit of mitigating the effects of bad DMing.4e bites the bullet on (ii), by making the metagame overt: the player has to negotiate with the GM for the feasibility of what is being attempted before any check can be declared or resolved. But it thereby avoids the covert blocking issue: once a check is declared, there is a structure to establish DCs, to determine how close the situation comes to resolution (N successes before 3 failures), etc.
It really seems like the best course of action is to just train the DM to not do that. If the DM can safely be assumed to never be blocking, and can be trusted to be a neutral arbiter, then you avoid the necessity of resorting to the meta-game. I know that the rules, at least as far back as Basic, have always emphasized that the DM should be fair.
Then again, perhaps I am merely oblivious to the less-pleasant aspects of human nature.