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Except it isn't. Going to the bathroom has no mechanical effect, nor is it a retrocausal explanation which has been expressly forbidden, nor is it a change of state in the world. Spell-acquisition has clear and overt mechanical effect. It is being given a (forbidden) retrocausal explanation...

You have already expressly said that 1 is true: they simply cannot pick the lock, that is the one and only fact established by their attempt. You have already made clear that you don't allow for broader intents than that, so we are locked into 1 by definition. And you are specifically--and...

That was the game I was speaking about when you replied to me. I'm afraid I'm not going to spin on a dime to "generic TTRPG" or "Lanefan's personal TTRPG derived at some length from a past edition of D&D". Depends. I would see that as such a fantastically hard move as to be...well. Being an...

5e does not have these. I wouldn't be surprised if such rules have not been included as part of the core rules since at least 3e, possibly earlier; I don't know 2e's mechanics all that well. I guarantee you it simply would not be accepted by the playerbase at large to make spells random. It...

I see this as "adding to one's experience" in the same way that clarifying that you don't have blue eyes, you have grey eyes (to reference the Dr. Demento D&D bit) "adds to the experience". Technically, yes, it "adds" a piece of information you did not already have, but that information does not...

But that's exactly the issue. This isn't a risk! Explicitly! Because you attempt a thing and, I cannot stress this enough, nothing happens. It's, by definition, not a risk! Nothing is actually risked by this! The stakes are that a thing you'd like to happen happens, OR...nothing. Genuinely...

The example I was speaking of was a Thief needing to get into a house, picking a locked door, and failing. If you wish to talk about that other example, I would probably need to know more, as "play literally just started, you looked for secret doors and found nothing" seems grossly unfair...

Sure. I had presumed that. I don't really buy that the time--what, a minute? two minutes?--taken to pick a lock is relevant for this. I'm also, as usual, very, VERY skeptical of all these things that are kept completely mum from the players. I don't see how this is any different from the...

Okay. So...what is it which builds that "pregnant with possibility" thing out of--as just quoted above--"you failed, it took a few minutes, nothing happened, everything is quiet, what do you do?" situation? Because that example was pretty pointedly not pregnant with possibility. It...

I mean it seemed pretty clear to me that that was precisely what Lanefan was previously arguing for, using the locked door as an example. The party fails to pick the lock. Nothing happens. A few minutes were wasted trying to pick that lock. The house is dark and quiet. Nothing happens, no...

But it's precisely a dead end caused by failing to clear a mechanical hurdle that is the thing I'm talking about. Talking through a dead end purely within fiction is perfectly acceptable. Good, even--in moderation. I've made very clear here that it's about invoking mechanics where mechanics...

Do you make your players roll to choose which path they take in the labyrinth? Because this seems a textbook example of something where you don't and shouldn't invoke mechanics. Just...have the players do the thing.

Not as a result of that move, no. This is among the rules that bind the GM--GMs are not free to just do whatever they want, whenever they want, no matter what. They are bound to respect the outcome of moves for the same reason that GMs are bound to respect the outcome of rolls in D&D. The thing...

(Ignore this, thought I had failed to post it but I had not failed to do so. Sorry!)

If game mechanics themselves can be diegetic, then the entire assertion of the manifesto you yourself linked collapses into a singularity. Because now you've erased the difference between "the world is primary" and "the world is not primary". The world can no longer be primary because the...

I'm sorry, but "you didn't roll high enough, you cannot open the lock" simply isn't "pregnant with possibility". It is nothing but a dead end. I genuinely do not understand how anyone can characterize "you simply couldn't roll high enough to get through the door you really need to get through"...

My argument on this is: 1. Yes, that's the description. It is pure "informed ability" as TVTropes would put it. Players simply do not actually do this, in functionally all games. 2. Because it is (functionally) never demonstrated by players, we are declaring that that has to be what actually...

Well, it implements the second flavor as something that isn't a failed roll, but rather, a weak successful roll. In D&D terms, the closest example is something akin to a knowledge check. A very high result means the character knows everything the player would wish to know, all the details that...

I think the issue is that there are two large groups, which remain consistent within themselves...but which frequently interact, meaning people from group 1 interact with people from group A and vice-versa, without ever changing their beliefs. People in group A see alignment as little more...

But they never SHOW experimenting with the two spells. They never SHOW "developing" the new spell. It never happens "on-camera". It is 100% completely implicit. Only because you have divined that it has to be from the rules. The rules established that players would get new spells. You have to...