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I don't have any sense of the 5e play culture, beyond what I read on these boards. But the idea that there is a tension between having skill ratings, and players engaging the fiction, is fairly foreign to me. I accept that a "pick locks" skill typically makes the fiction of how the tumblers...

In a (fairly traditional) dungeon, which way the party goes is all about threat and risks, though. That's what rumours, detection magic, listening at doors, and the like are all for. Because the magical feedback might blast your soul? Or (depending on more details of the resolution system) they...

I tend to regard "storygame" as a bit of a scare quote category by default - it's like Greg Stafford calling Prince Valiant a "storytelling" game because he wants to make it clear it's not a technical resource-management type game of the classic D&D sort. Or even, for me, like calling the...

From my perspective, the way this happened was that while you - as Carda - and @Manbearcat - as Sir Gilroy - were fighting your duel, I worked through a solitaire, which is what the game says a player is allowed to do if they're not in the current main scene. I'd made my notes and everything...

I found some easier to work with than others. In the Animated Disagreement, where the audience poses the "challenges", @thefutilist made us explain how the other position has merit and is worth real consideration. That wasn't easy to do while remaining true to Soni as a character, as she didn't...

Well, Showdown does describe itself as a roleplaying game.

As I posted upthread, choosing which door to open can be an in-game solution to a problem. The roll to open locks then determines whether or not that solution can actually be put into effect.

Victorious in a pity duel.

Showdown The first thing to do in this game is to settle on a genre. We agreed on Napoleonic-era duel between nobles, although our approach to history was fairly relaxed. Then we had to build our PCs. Here they are: Me: Bertrand, Heir to the Duke of Burgundy Weapon: muzzle-loading flintlock...

Mobile Frame Zero - Firebrands With three players, the rules required one character from each faction: the on-world Bantreash nobles, the off-worlders trying to assert ownership of the world's resources, and the labouring underclass revolutionaries. I went first, and chose the latter-most...

Today I played a couple of "storygames" online, with @thefutilist and (in one of them) @Manbearcat. The first (with three players) was Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands: The year is SC 0245. Humanity has spread through the Milky way, using interstellar transit gate technology to colonize the...

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!