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I make it up! It's not hard. The players aren't drawing a map. If they want their PCs to make a map, they could do that by using a Specialty to create an appropriate Resource, which would then contribute a die to the dice pool for appropriate actions.

I think that central to the RPG, in its most paradigmatic form, is two things: *Fiction matters to resolution; *Most of the participants (that is, the players) engage with the fiction from the position/perspective of one particular person within the fiction (their player character). The first...

So, you say that you play PbtA games. The only one I remember you actually mentioning is Monster of the Week, which as best I understand is a pretty traditional game in its play structure, but that uses some AW-esque mechanics. So I don't know if you use the AW technique of "asking questions...

So you think that AD&D thieves read runes using their nimbleness and stealth? "Cunning" does not mean simply "deceitful". It also implies cleverness and shrewdness. From Merriam-Webster: crafty in the use of special resources (such as skill or knowledge) or in attaining an end . . ...

Here's a post where you talked to another posters about 3E Wildshape. They used a spreadsheet, and you seemed to understand why they did it. Power Attack in 3E also invites the use of a spreadsheet, especially to optimise damage against a given AC:

@clearstream is identifying a difference similar to the one between these two ways of getting a chip from a friend: *A friend comes to visit you at your house, and brings a bag of chips as a gift for you the host. *A friend is eating some chips from a bag, and you ask if you can have one, and...

I assume you don't mean this literally, because while reading runes to find out if they show the way out is a thing the PC can do, of course the player isn't reading any runes - they're just imaginary. Similarly, a PC might fight an Orc with a sword, but what the player does is roll dice and...

I don't know what RPG you are describing here. But this is not something that I have experienced in GMing Burning Wheel, Torchbearer 2e, Prince Valiant, Marvel Heroic RP (or my Fantasy Hack of it), Agon, 4e D&D or any other RPG that gets labelled "narrative". I don't see how it would come up in...

From Gygax's PHB, p 18: "Thieves use cunning, nimbleness, and stealth." Just to be clear: are you saying that I'm wrong about the rules of my own fantasy hack of MHRP? or are you just complaining about my use of the word "Cunning"?

I'm just a bit fed up with you (and other posters) misdescribing it. I mean, you say it's not hard to understand that it is not map-and-key, GM-authority-over-backstory based. And then you say that the character "manipulated reality" and talk about "quantum runes". It's doubly frustrating...

For me too. It is the game that Gygax and Arneson invented, and that Gygax developed. And that has been further developed in 4e D&D. It's not and has never purported to be a "process simulation" game. Gygax's PHB and even moreso his DMG is full of essays of apology and explanation for the...

@clearstream may have a different reply to make from this one. But as I read @clearstream's posts, the point is quite simple: players in RPGs are capable of (i) establishing immediate goals relating to the removal of afflictions, conditions etc, and (ii) declaring actions that, if successful...

The rune case has no "meta-decision". The player says "Maybe these runes will help us get unlost", and puts their dice pool together, and the declared action is resolved. Where is the alleged "meta"? I mean, of course the player knows that the result of the declared action will effect the...

It seems hard to understand, because posters - eg @AlViking - keep posting that the character determined what the runes mean.

I don't see the point of this. In a D&D combat, the player - through rolling dice etc - contributes to a fiction in which an Orc is dead. In the imaginary world of D&D, the player's character - by dint of deft footwork, skill with a blade, etc - kills an Orc in battle. The PC can't kill an...

I know. You have made this quite clear. In the game I was playing, the character had not control over the meaning of the runes either. The runes had been written by some unknown person long ago. The character doesn't roll dice. The player did. Suppose I told you that combat in your D&D game is...

I dunno - it's not that hard to find people posting about their dissatisfaction with their RPGing. But maybe they're not being sincere? In any event, if you accept my testimony as to my own play, than I don't know on what basis you are saying the design question I identified has not been answered.

Suppose that the game is one based on GM-authored backstory. The player knows that the runes their PC reads were not actually written 1000 years ago. They know that they were made up by the GM, either on the spot or perhaps in the course of preparation for play. In my MHRP/Fantasy Hack game...

I didn't say it is. But it is part of playing a RPG. There is not the least difficulty in saying how MHRP works: *The PC is subject to a Lost in the Dungeon complication, rated at d12. *The GM frames a scene, that includes a Strange Runes scene distinction. *The player, as their PC, has the...

On the contrary: you are ignoring the role of epistemic uncertainty, which makes the metaphysical aspect of the situation secondary. The character does not know what the runes say; but they have a conjecture and a hope. For them, epistemically, it is possible that the runes reveal a way out...