Recent content by pemerton

Did you not read any of my posts in which I said that this is not a game about solving puzzles or overcoming GM-authored challenges so as to get to the "finish line"? Anyone who is playing MHRP and thinks this seems to be as confused as a person who turns up with their bag of dice to a chess...

I have dug down, and have offered a diagnosis. You apparently reject it because it's "sanctimonious". But anyway, here are two resolution systems: *In classic D&D dungeon-crawling - I'm thinking Ghost Towers of Inverness, or Tomb of Horrors, or anything like that - we work out whether or not...

Sure. But I'm not the poster you need to take that up with!

Players declare actions to confer benefits on their PCs all the time. The runes case wasn't mechanically easier than any other candidate action: it had a cost in the action economy the same as any other action declaration would have had; it required the player to roll their dice pool against...

Aren't you a proponent of abstraction? I take it, then, that you don't have @Maxperson's objection to the Cunning Expert PC build element.

You are asserting that you can tell me how your rogue climbed the wall. But you can't! All you can say is that, because the rogue is a good climber, they were able to climb the wall. Cunning Expert d8.

What handholds did your rogue use? Which fingers? What sorts of grips? How did they use their legs, vs their arms and shoulders? I've never seen a climb resolved in a RPG which specified any of these things. Likewise, I've never seen a fight resolved in a RPG which specified the exact position...

The GM calls for a WIS (Perception) check. The player fails, and so their PC fails to notice something. The GM narrates that as "While you were <doing X?" or "Because you were <distracted by Y>". The PC's activity, which explains why they didn't notice the thing in question, is introduced into...

See, I generally prefer more simulation that D&D offers, which is one reason why I play and enjoy Burning Wheel and Torchbearer 2e. Then I get told they're not simulationist, whereas D&D is! Given that both systems have bucketloads of process sim (in PC build, in action resolution) compared...

What swing? What damage? I mean, two 10th level fighters duel. They have (say) 90 hp each. The player of one rolls a successful hit, and 5 points of damage. Now the other fighter has 85 hp left. What task did that fighter succeed at? Gygax, in his DMG, expressly says that the rules don't say...

Don't they? Then how do you explain Tomb of Horrors? Or if you want something more grounded: why wouldn't (say) a burial chamber have runes that indicate it is (or at least once was) a burial chamber, which would permit an expert to identify it as a burial chamber, thus enabling the expert to...

I made this same point upthread, in relation to Perception checks and surprise mechanics. The reason it doesn't get commented on is the same as the reason that no one objects to "retro-causally" narrating sharp rocks, crumbling rocks, poorly-tied knots, etc. It's because the GM is doing it and...

That your complaint, as best I can tell, is simply that the player rather than the GM established some fiction. How is it free? And what is your objection to players doing helpful things, by declaring actions for their PCs?_ (Also, the PC didn't leave the dungeon. As I've already posted, the...

How does you thief climb to the top of the wall? Or your fighter beat the Orc? All you can point to is that they are skilled thief or a skill climber. You don't actually know what they did to succeed. But all "more hit points, damage output and accuracy" means is that they are, mechanically, a...

This is a point I've been making on these boards for years now.