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By "we" you might mean "you". There is no such thing as "differently quantum". That just means "quantum that I don't like" as opposed to "quantum that I'm OK with". I've played in the sorts of games that you describe. They're pretty conventional, and I know how they work. That's why I call them...

Whether or not a burglar opens the door while someone is there to see them has a lot to do with their competence as a burglar. At least it seems like that to me. Yes, as I have said, competent people make their own luck. Now if you are telling me that your skill system can't differentiate...

But this just brings us back to the commonplace observation that getting sprung and/or startling someone is not completely independent of the action of breaking into a house. They're actually pretty tightly connected.

It alluded to one, though.

I don't know any RPG where any PC can control the universe, so I'm not sure how this remark is meant to factor in. I mean, competent people control more of the universe than incompetent people. That's inherent in their competence, and is part of how they make their own luck.

Right. I mean, I sometimes find that these threads have a bizarre character, where posters like @Micah Sweet accuse me of hating, or not understanding, simulationist priorities, when I GMed Rolemaster for 19 years and 1000s of hours. Even my Burning Wheel games are more simulationist, in...

Eero Tuovinen talks about these different approaches to "simulationist" play in his blog: Observations on GNS Simulationism – Correspondence is about Diligence

This isn't my experience. Competent people make their own luck, along these sorts of lines:

The reason hit points are not a simulation is not because they are not granular. It's because they don't model anything. They are just a countdown clock. Saving throws in classic D&D are likewise just a mode of plot armour, as Gygax explains in his DMG. 3E and 5e change this, taking them in a...

This is not correct. I mean, I learned to play BW from Revised. I only quote Gold because the text is available as a free download from DTRPG. The stuff that you are asserting is absent from Revised is not. Page 12: "players take on the roles of characters inspired by history and works of...

That's not the comparison class I'm working with.

I'm not telling you what your view is. I'm telling you about D&D. The idea that hp, saving throws, surprise rolls, etc are "simulationist" isn't one that I can credit.

This is especially important, if we're actually looking at how play works. It's obvious that many elements of the fiction, which must "exist" in the fiction (eg grass must have some or other length; the sky must have some or other colour; if there are clouds, they must have some or other shape)...

I understand "independent of the player". That's why I call the RPGing "GM-driven" or "GM-centred". I assert that, if the trigger for introducing some content into the shared fiction is a die roll, it doesn't become less "quantum" because the GM rather than the player rolled the die.

This makes no difference as to whether it is "quantum". Unless "quantum" now just means what some posters don't like.

I could be here (and am) or could be elsewhere (but am not), so am both here and not there? That doesn't make sense to me. I also don't see how this is different from a wandering monster roll.

So it would be more realistic if bad things happened whether competent or incompetent people took the lead? That doesn't make much sense to me.

Hang on - so you're saying that, for instance, at Gygax's table the GM tracked the location of the loot inside the gelatinous cube in advance of any encounter, and used that position to work out whether or not the PCs would be able to notice the cube?

I'm just saying that D&D is not a very good simulationist game. That's why I GMed Rolemaster for 19 years.

Isn't it? If the roll succeeds, isn't the success in the fiction because the character was skilful?