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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5314475" data-attributes="member: 42582">Thanks. Did you have any thoughts on my reply to you upthread?Hmm. I think the 3E DMG says something in the introductory chapter about the GM having the power to suspend the rules in the interests of fun. And the 3E PHB mentions "rule zero" as the GM's ultimate authority over PC build. (I frequently see "rule zero" used more genrally, though, to describe the GM's discretion over the rules.)If I get a chance when I get home, and remember, I'll look up my copies. (Also - my memories here are based all on 3E 1st printing books. I can't vouch for 3.5.)I think there is a degree of ambiguity, in both older and newer D&D rulebooks, over what "the rules" includes. Sometimes it is used to refer only to character build and action resolution mechanics (sometimes only to the latter), but sometimes to such aspects as rewards, encounter design etc. With respect to these categories that are closer to "guidelines", it can sometimes be ambiguous as to whether a GM is suspending or altering the rules, or simply exercising a discretion to which the rules give rise.Be that as it may, one thing that I notice about your listening example (and we could imagine that being formalised into a guideline about automatic successes, as per HeroQuest), is that it is a suspension of the action resolution mechanics that gets the players to where they want to go in the game. (Suppose we had a situation where the listen check in the bar involved two PCs - one whispering, the other trying to overhear. At this point I would expect the whispering player to be able to insist that the dice be rolled, analogously to the exmple on Vincent Baker's blog.)Whereas what I object to in the case of the swarm grab example is that it is a suspension of the action resolution mechanics that thwarts the player by GM fiat. Now you might instead compare it to genre constraints on scene-framing in HeroQuest - the GM does not permit the player to frame a scene in which his/her PC grabs a swarm - but HeroQuest works on the implicit assumption that the player has a sufficient alternative ways of engaging the ingame situation, whereas for the brawler build fighter that's probably not the case. In a game that permitted liberal use of page 42 as a substitute for encounter powers then this last assumption might be wrong, at which point I might start being more flexible. But a better alternative might be for the swarm to use page 42 to get in an improvised attack on the PC that has grabbed it! Let the GM use the fiction to progess the situation rather than block the player's engagement with it.Absent improvised attacks, a 4e GM who wants to engage the players more with the nature of the swarm as an element of the fiction - which is an admirable goal in many circumstances - can use those aspects of the swarm mechanics that do engage the fiction. In this case, that would be having the swarm escape or manoeuvre through tight spaces that the PCs can't themselves squeeze through. This would bring the fiction to life as relevant to the play (and not mere theatrics), again without thwarting the player with the brawler PC.</blockquote>

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