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One important part of Martial Arts training in fiction is often judging how tough your opponent is at a glance.

I think many players see through the ruse of moving the baseline easier than the designers think.... :D

This is one other important aspect where the perception of magical and non-magical differ. I know players who would have no problem being hit with a magical fear effect, but would balk att having to play out being hit with a good Intimidate skill roll. Above I collected three important...

My 1E DM was a simulationist in extremis. When he started his campaign he started bt defining how many critters of each level there were on each hex of the map, and then defined how far each level were willing to migrate to nearest population center... What that in practice meant, was that as...

I should have said "core D&D", shouldn't I? :D Nice motivator illustration in that link, btw.

For having wargaming roots, I think morale is severely underdefined in D&D - opponents are always fanatically fighting to the death. They never break, withdraw, retreat, return to harass, etc.

This is making me confused. To me, all examples of non-magical narritive control *have* been about changing the backstory. When you posit that there is a flowerpot on the windowsill, the flowerpot *has always been there* - i.e. you change the past to change the present. When you posit that the...

From previous examples, I gathered that *asking* the DM for "what small hard object is there lying around that I can drop on an opponents head?" is *not* narrative control, while positing that specifically a flowerpot is there *is* narrative control. The flowerpot may have been a trivial...

But what do you do when the player-supplied narration conflict with the world-building? - I grab a flowerpot from the windowsill and drop it on his head. - But this is an ascetic monastery without decorations -they dont have flowerpots. - But I paid a point to change the narrative, so now I...

As GM of said Maid campaign, I must say that I *do* love when the players mess with my stuff this way. Some of the best sessions were when I had to throw out my notes completely, and run the whole thing with by the seats of my pants improvisation. ;) And Starfox character has earned godlike...

Giant spheres of water, hundreds of yards across, carried aloft by unknown forces in an airy, sunlit void, occacionally merging or splitting by the same forces. The surfaces of most spheres are covered with rich water vegetation, making the center a deep green twilight inhabited by bright...

A long, pristinely white beach meandering fractally between an exuberant djungle and a deep blue sea. A hot sun shines down, but is tempered by a cool sea breeze. Exposure to the sun and the sea will make any kind of healing or restorative magic much stronger, but also cause severe tanning in...

A giant dark void, inhabited by spirits that compete for what little matter there is. This matter is used to make animated constructs of varying size, constructs that are posessed and inhabited by these spirits. The only way for a spirit to grow its construct, or for a new spirit to start one...

My suspicion too. Ran into something similar just recently, in a campaign I play in. ;) My DM usually says that "too deadly campaigns kills roleplaying". Think that applies to non-combat abilities too, wherever there is a choice.

Traditionally this is simply done with magic items. Since so many of these duplicate magic spells, they enable those without spells to do the same thing as those who do have them, being a big equalizer. Of course, magic items give those with spells *more* magic, but there is a *major*...

For Starfox: TL;DR = "too long, did not read". Originally a comment on too verbose and dense texts, inicating that the reader skipped whole or parts. Here it was used to indicate a summary for those who thougth the whole text was "to long, did not read".

So, what happens when a person who has *not* purchased that feat calls out "Stop Thief!" in a crowded street?

The thing is, if we turn these kind of things into abilities or powers that are somehow purchased, either through point-buy or through slots in your class build, you cut into the space for stunts; improvisational, spur-of-the-moment inspiration things. For example, yesterday in Starfox...

Well, if a character's riding beast has *all* the stats of a warhorse, (including an inability to fly or breathe fire "because it is so well-behaved"), but the player claims it is a dragon, what would you do? Go with it, or consider the character to be far off in Don Quixote-land?

I was referring to the point where some, not necessarily you, want fighters to have equal amount of out-of-combat narrative control as other classes. I think somebody mentioned playing a card that made a wall climb "not a problem" being equal to a climb spell, for example. So I just used your...