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Huh? Why does comparing the roll of a die in a RPG to the toss of a coin imply that it doesn't matter? I don't follow that ostensible implication at all. When you say that "the roll is usually wrapped in specific diegetic trappings", I assume you are referring to things like dice pools that are...

This is what I'm saying is not true in most of my RPGing. When characters fight; or when a character tries to pick a lock; there is something happening in the fiction. The roll of the dice doesn't represent that something. But it contributes to how we - the game participants - decide what is...

Maybe a Typhoon Dragon (Tun Mi Lung) or similar? The way I'm thinking it makes sense that a typhoon dragon might be summoned from the depths is if the conjured storm disturbs it in its palace at the bottom of the ocean. Though that would make it a side effect of the spell, and I'm not sure if...

Tossing a coin has a reason: it could be indifference (as you suggest), or fairness, or (in Two Face's case) a profound commitment to randomness. But the tossing of a coin doesn't represent that reason. There are some decision procedures which some people think are representational - eg voting...

Given that we're talking about the rules of the game, and how declared actions are resolved, I don't think that PC vs NPC is a very helpful framing. The question concerns what the players and the GM are expected (or required) to do, in order to establish the shared fiction. Well, I'm reading the...

I was wanting to make a post in this thread, and your post helped me focus my thoughts. To my mind, a lot of games that others characterise as "open" or "flexible" seem to me to be incomplete. That is, they don't actually set out procedures that the participants are expected to follow, in order...

I play a lot of RPGs with mechanical social skills. They don't fail.

Here's what it says here <Using Ability Scores>: The DM calls for an ability check when a character or monster attempts an action (other than an attack) that has a chance of failure. When the outcome is uncertain, the dice determine the results. For every ability check, the DM decides which of...

As I said, I don't tend to see the dice as representing anything. They're a decision procedure. Like if we toss a coin to decide which movie to go to, or draw lots to see who has to do the washing up, those decision procedures don't represent anything. When people play a RPG together, at the...

This is one approach. It's not the only possible approach even with mainstream ways of playing D&D. And of course there are RPGs that expressly preclude this approach: for instance, the player in Burning Wheel does have a right to a roll (as per the principle of "say 'yes' or roll the dice"...

But how should the GM be doing this? I often GM RPGs where the NPCs/creatures who oppose the PCs have Beliefs, Instincts, Nature etc. (I have in mind particularly Torchbearer and Burning Wheel.) As a GM, I'm expected to have regard to these traits in declaring actions for my NPCs/creatures. The...

My starting point is that the randomiser doesn't represent anything: it's a decision procedure, not a model. Taking it to "represent . . . a variety of factors too small for the GM to supply as part of the narrative up-front" seems to assume that the aspiration/ideal is for the GM to just...

Does the contrary also apply? Eg a first level fighter can't Intimidate a pit fiend? But what about bluffing? Perhaps a first level fighter can bluff a pit fiend into thinking they're a more powerful fighter. And maybe an Orc can bluff a high level PC into thinking that the Orc is a threat...

I enjoy a reasonable variety of procedures of play. But there is one that I tend to be hesitant about, and a related one that I actually dislike. I tend to be hesitant about a procedure of play that permits the GM to draw upon secret aspects of the fiction to declare that a player's declared...

I think this is an important question about a core mechanic: what does the outcome of the mechanic tell us about the fiction? @Staffan's post assumes that the result, in the fiction, of the player failing their roll is that their PC fails to perform the task that they attempted. But that's not...

There's a lot of variety in RPGs. But most of them have two distinguishing features: * There is a fiction that the participants imagine together, that matters in game play, in the sense that the shared fiction constrains what moves the participants are able to make, and what follows from those...

To me, that doesn't sound like a particularly compelling dungeon.

Not in my case. When I use dice in a RPG it's not because I think the fiction is uncertain. It's because I want the fiction to be uncertain.

From the point of view of the structure of a player's engagement with the game, there is no difference between the following two states of affairs: *Your character is unconscious, so you can't declare actions for them until they recover. *Your character is petrified with fear, so you can't...

In my experience, the play of Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic involves a lot of plot points being spent and earned; many more than a handful of times over the course of a session.