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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7976121" data-attributes="member: 42582">I said "in 5e D&D, have no canonical way of making the stakes of resolution be do we find the widget at place X or does the widget do what we want it to at place Z. All they can do is look to the GM and ask."You have replied by saying that "The players can make the stakes of the resolution "would we find the widget if it was here?" The players can make the stakes of the resolution "Can we figure out if the widget will do the thing?" Those are different things from what I said. I'm not sure if that's intentional on your part, or not.But in any event, the second paragraph that I have quoted drives home the difference I have just noted, and it shows that what I said is correct. Consider:You say I know where that book is. I take that to mean - you have either a written or a mental note that (let's say) the book is in the captain's trunk.If the players then declare We search the captain's daughter's hope chest looking for the book they have not been able to establish, as stakes of the resolution, Would we fine the widget at place X where X = the captain's daughter's hope chest. Because you have already decided that the book is not in the hope chest but rather in her father's trunk.That feature of canonical 5e resolution - namely that generally the player's cant establishe stakes of non-combat resolution - is highly relevant when thinking about how to play out an Ocean's 11 scenario in 5e D&D.There are other approaches to RPG resolution that are different from 5e D&D. [USER=205]@TwoSix[/USER] has pointed to ones where the player is entitled to expressly make the truth (in the fiction) of the statement The book is in the captain's trunk hostage to a mechanic over which the player has some influence. Burning Wheel has this to a relatively large degree. I don't know BitD all that well, but I think it has at least modest bits of this.Another approach is one in which the player is able, via mechanics over which s/he has some influence, to oblige the GM to establish some fiction that will serve the player and his/her PC's purposes, and the GM is expected in general to establish fiction having regard to the players and their PCs' purposes. Apocalyps World is probably the best-known RPG at the moment that exemplifies this approach. 4e D&D encourages it, although not with the same degree of clarity and mechanical rigour as AW. And other systems can also be run this way - eg this is basically how I run Classic Traveller, and the rules for that system (at least in their 1977 presentation) point towards it somewhat.I think it would be possible to run 5e D&D this way although there would probably be a few challenges and need for a bit of work establishing table practices and conventions, because the mechanics aren't presented with this sort of approach in mind. Obviously I can't speak for [USER=6801328]@Elfcrusher[/USER] but he seems to approach 5e in something like this fashion. The starting point, obvoiusly, would be to abandon the notion that I know where the book is.Which is to say, you would have to move away from what I described, upthread, as an approach to resolution in which the players have to figure out what the GM has in mind. (Eg by figuring out where the GM thinks the book is.)</blockquote>

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