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I don't really know how you're using "metaphysical". I'm talking about things like whether the fiction is established or implicit, authored now or then (which thus establishes the contrasts between in-fiction temporal relations and real-world temporal relations between fictional elements), etc...

This doesn't change the point that the throwing of the punch is an INUS condition: an insufficient but necessary component of an unnecessary but sufficient condition. Those other factors are also INUS conditions.

In the AW example, the roll is to Act Under Fire. The modifier is cool, as in "cool under fire, rational, clearthinking, calm, calculating, unfazed." (p 14). I think someone who is cool in this way is pretty good at making their own luck - making the call as to when to enter, based on their...

In my view, "If we roll to populate a hex the players just entered" then it is obvious that "everything is being made up for the PCs." The player saying "My PC enters this hex" and the player saying "I only rolled 1 success" are both the players doing things, that are then prompting the GM to...

You don't think that one way to test if a character gets lucky is by rolling dice? But they are fixed if it is subsequent to, rather than prior to, the player saying My PC goes for a night-time walk through the town, thus obliging the GM to decide whether a guard harasses the PC? The rule for...

We could even say - it's uncertain whether or not an intruder will be sprung by a cook in the kitchen - so we roll dice . . .

Right. Because instead a roll is used: a roll that does not take fiction - imagined facts about what the PCs are doing, what they are paying attention to, etc - as input.

I mean all the stuff in this quote.

All good questions.

I mean the ontological character/properties of fictional entities, and the various relations that obtain between them.

To me - and with the caveat that I don't know Sorcerer all that well - this seems fairly similar to my Apocalypse World example upthread with Pattycakes the cook in Dremmer's storeroom. Pattycakes has probably not been mentioned before, but insofar as the PC is sneaking into Dremmer's hardhold...

I don't think it's just granularity. Because if players were expected to declare their actions at the level of detail that would establish whether they are paying attention, keeping their mind on the immediate situation, etc, then of course they always would! The surprise roll, or in 5e D&D the...

The fiction always allows for several possible outcomes, as far as I can see. Eg the player has their PC sneak into a house via the kitchen. Maybe there is a cook in the kitchen; maybe there isn't. Maybe there are windchimes on the door; maybe there aren't. Maybe the fire in the kitchen is up...

I don't know what a "determinism strawman" is. But if the GM decides that the prior state of the fiction doesn't yield an outcome/event now, but an outcome/event is needed, and therefore the GM rolls on a table, that is not a case of the GM saying something because the logic of the fiction...

As I posted upthread, there is no requirement, in D&D, that a creature be invisible or camouflaged in order to surprise the PCs. It is possible simply to sneak up on them while they are distracted. Consider, for instance, a situation where a group of 5 Orcs come around a dungeon corridor and...

This sort of example illustrates why I regard GM-prep-driven play, of this sort, as GM-driven. There are approaches to prep that differ from "trad" play that are nevertheless apt to introduce mutant beings into the fiction - eg Apocalypse World fronts/threats - but that follows from the fact...

In games that use "fail forward" adjudication, the roll is functionally related to the consequence that gets narrated: the whole point of making the roll is to shape and constrain subsequent narration. Anyway, upthread, I posted this: The "problem" you are describing is a violation of this...

I think this line of inquiry is a dead end. Because it is impossible, in a RPG of the typical sort, which involves settings and situations that are more intricate (in their fictional content) than the most austere map-and-key scenario, for the fiction to all be pre-determined. So: do any of the...

OK - there are many posts being made, and I will concede that I may have not followed every sub-division of every topic. But the only published adventure I know of that fits that austerity requirement is S1 Tomb of Horrors. The rest all have wandering monsters. If the GM chooses to use the...

But now you're agreeing with me - there is no in-fiction reason that has been established prior to the rolling of the dice.