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The DM has to make the treasures found "believable", e.g. a Beholder doesn't carry a magic sword. That's the only "internal logic of the world" relevant in a gamist RPG like D&D. It's a common one and it is a very bad idea because it breaks the fundamental role of the reward system : tell the...

QFT.

No, that would be cheating. The DM must set up appropriate challanges and gives rewards (treasures and XP) according to the rules of the game. The DM can ajust NPCs behavior in real time too, that is irrelevant. Again, that's a cheating DM not an adversarial one.

In D&D yes, but that's not the only way to do it. And I'll would add again that if it's not possible for them to fail agaisn't these challenges, there is no meaningful choices. On top of it, XP should reward the good choices that made them succeed (So they can level up to fight bigger challenges).

A good example would be "Monster X would never surrender because of Y or Z" or "Monster A is too intelligent to ever fight to death", etc. Of course those sentences are not written in the MM but part of a sub-culture of the D&D players.

Ok re-read this aloud. Okay, if you are giving up the control of the villain and instead following a kind of predetermined course of action, you're having a "sim" playstyle that is not adversarial. Here, don't confuse the "predetermined course of action" with the "tactics round by round"...

Yeah, just after I wrote my post I thougt of such an exception. But that's not the kind of "setted end" you find in D&D modules.

Well, first I have to say that I hate the "simulationist" playstyle, but I won't go in details here. Second, D&D was always more challenge-based (or gamist) than simulationist over the editions (maybe less under 2E). Third, 4E seems to go farther this way and it's of course IMHO a very good...

Right, if the end is already set, i.e. the choices made trough the way are not significant, you have neither challenge nor drama. Sadly it's seem that many groups don't try to get better than this "enjoy the ride" playstyle. Edit : BTW, the ride is often seen in the Realm of Fudging.

Yeah. Players lose and "DM win" is the same, the players fail a reasonable challenge because the DM's strategies were better than the players' ones (or simply lucky). That doesn't mean TPK, but probably no XP (at least less than if they had succeeded). However, in a typical D&D campaign, the...

That's not a question of personal style, that's how the game is built. You can always do something else with it, but YMMV.

Sorry but in D&D there is a "fun" competition between the DM and the players. The competition is not fun any longer when the DM cheats by setting the player agaisn't unreasonable challenges, or being too soft, etc...

Two things.. WoD is not the perfect example of story-driven game play. The details and complexity of D&D (even more true in 4E) is there to promote the use of strategies more than to simulate a fictional fantasy world. Edit : You can also have a "round-by-round" conflict resolution combat...

Read both links above, they will explain why my previous examples may be misleading.

Right. Two other interesting "variants" : 1- Say "yes" : If both players and DM agree that the intent should be fulfilled, there is no need to roll anything. 2- Let it ride : Once something have been tried, the result stay until major changes to the condition. (No retry, but also no check...

The terms come from The Forge. The basic idea is that conflict resolution is much more abstract than task resolution. In conflict resolution, the main concept is the intent, i.e. what the player wants to happen in the shared imagined space, while the task is how he does it. Then, if the...

I think we disagree on the size of the variety. And, that is IMHO one of the main reason why we see so much cheating in D&D. What is outside D&D and often done with more or less success depending on the specific group : - Using it to simulate a fictional fantasy world. - Using it for...

Well they can say : if you do otherwise than X and Y, you warranty is void. However, I'm not even sure I want to play around with that metaphore.

Sorry but that is already done by the designers up to EGG. Of course you can feel free do to whatever you want with the books you purchased, but that doesn't change what the D&D game is or is not. I mean, you can roleplay over a chess or monopoly board, that will not make chess or monopoly RPG.

Of course you can always do something else with a game than what it was designed for (children are very good at it) but you have no guaranteed results. What I don't understand, is the idea that D&D should be able to be modified to meet every playstyle and that using RPGs built to support those...