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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5320425" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think this is very interesting.In my own games, the "moment of judgement" tends to occur in designing PCs and NPCs, in setting up situations and in adjudicating skill chekcs (especially skill challenges, which often involve re-establishing the situation and/or the NCPs participants within it over the course of the encounter). In adjudicating combat encounters, however, I tend to follow the rules very closely - and not only in D&D, but in other games as well. This means that judgment is important for determining which NPC moves where and does what, but (once actions are declared) has comparatively little impact upon mechanical resolution.I don't know that there is any good reason for this - it's probably just an old roleplayers' habit, which the design of games like Rolemaster and Runequest tends to reinforce (loose skill rules, tight combat rules).The above having been said, I do like to adjudicate actions in 4e combat by reference to page 42, encounter terrain rules, etc. When the skill power rules came out I was a bit worried that they might crowd out this space, implicitly limiting the scope for judgement by establishing effects that should cost a feat to perform. Thankfully I don't think they've done that, because the powers they grant are well ahead (in power terms) of what I've used page 42 for.Martial practices, on the other hand, I'm quite happy to ignore in order to avoid just this issue of crowding out the moment of judgement in skill resolution.I think this is a much better way to approach things than via Rule Zero or its equivalent. It incorporates the "moment of judgement" into the mechanics, rather than leaving it entirely at the level of mutual understanding among a play group.I think it is a further issue what matters are made subject to judgement, whether from GM or players or both. For example, the 1st ed AD&D alignment rules expressly require the GM to exercise judgement in many circumstances, and those determinations aren't just colour - they have real mechanical consequences. But I think those rules are one of the biggest sources of player/GM friction in the history of D&D, and getting rid of them has (in my view) been a huge improvement in the game.So I don't think it's enough that the game expressly provide opportunities for the exercise of judgement. It has to get the content and parameters and consequecnes of that judgment right. I think this is a big issue that a lot of game texts (including the 4e ones) don't adequately address. For example, 4e gives good advice to a GM on how to exercise judgement in constructing encounters to achieve particular desired mechanical effects, but says very little about how to use encounters - both in the initial framing, and in the resolution - to drive a story or otherwise engage the players. With skill challengs the text is even more sparse.</blockquote>

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