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Right. The decision is which way to go or which door to try and open. Analogous to tactical decisions in combat. Then the die is rolled. Just as it is in combat.

In Wuthering Heights, you roll on your age ("oldness", as the translation from the French has it): To test his wisdom, one should roll below his Oldness To test his physical well-being, one should Surpass his Oldness (This post brought to you by for completeness.)

A situation isn't a path. In Burning Wheel, a player can also establish key elements and/or trajectory of a scene, via Circles and Wises.

Which RPG(s) do you have in mind?

I guess they'd tell you that it's a "writers' room"?

That a monster turns up is "diegetic". That the GM rolls every <insert period here> to see if a monster turns up doesn't seem very diegetic. It seems like a clock designed to drive gameplay. That the GM makes additional rolls to see if a monster turns up if the players have their PCs do noisy...

This is absolutely true. Yep, that's one possible example: let the players provide the basic elements that the GM then uses to construct a compelling situation.

I don't think I follow this. At least in my experience, when playing AD&D with PCs of (say) 5th or higher level, then when the group looks around the table saying "What do we do?", most often the answer is something that is on someone's character sheet - typically a spell or a magic item; but...

That sounds like the sort of thing a boardgamer might say!

Yeah, the issue seems to be about how situations are framed/established, how consequences are established, and how action declaration and resolution fir into those broader procedures.

I had been planning to post exactly this!

Post 2062 seemed to.

The comparison of the play of games like CoC, Pendragon, Burning Wheel etc to boardgames is quite bizarre. Look at how people actually play those games, the way they establish characters, etc. The idea that players of these games are proponents of "hack and slash" play, or "roll dice because I...

When I watch Casablanca, I am moved by the unfolding of the relationship between Rick and Ilsa, even though I'm not in love with either character. And I enjoy the "beginning of a beautiful friendship" even though I'm not friends with those people. When watching a horror movie, I'm drawn into...

Sorry, I didn't mean to sow confusion. My "shocked face" was intended in sympathy to your point.

Also, many RPGs seem to aspire to an agenda that their framing and resolution rolls don't necessarily support.

If the player is actually scared, then they're not acting! Speaking just for myself, part of what is involved in roleplaying as I see it is an ability to immerse in a character who is not me. If I'm playing a CoC-type game, and the rules tell me that my PC is spooked or panicked or afflicted...

Rolemaster has a simulationist, or at least quasi-simulationist, approach to XP. But D&D doesn't, in any of its versions.

OK? I'm not sure how that is relevant to me setting out what Gygax says in his DMG.

I don't know if I'm following your account of "priorities". If a character flees in fear (whether due to a failed Steel test in BW, or a failed morale check in Traveller, or whatever) I am assuming that we are now saying their priority has changed - to saving themself - and we are seeing what...