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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8509234" data-attributes="member: 82106">Well, I think I'm CONCLUDING that 5e is incoherent, not 'assuming' it. You've provided an interpretation that claims to show how it isn't incoherent, the gist of which I outlined in my post that you responded to. I also take it that the above highlighted part of your reply is agreement with my interpretation. I respond that this interpretation seems quite forced, as nothing in the actual 5e rules text seems to reinforce it in any way. I believe some of the text in the PHB that has been cited also seems to be hard to square with your interpretation. So, I don't think that 'assumption' is a good description, I think I've applied some logical analysis and that drives my conclusion. Now, I admit, you are free to interpret each phrase in very particular ways, but those readings feel quite unnatural to me. If the "no progress" statement were REALLY so qualified as that it should apply only when no progress produces 'interesting failure' why didn't the other just mention that, like add a 2 or 3 word clause to the end of the sentence referring back to the previous statement or reiterating it? That would be what I would expect from good quality rules text! Given the entire 'spin' that WotC has consistently put on 5e, that it is all 'DM interpretation' as to how things work, I find it rather more likely that this is simply another such case. One rule section claims that there must be 'interesting failure' but another ignores that admonition!The upshot being, I think that calling 5e* a 'RAW' interpretation of 5e is a bit strained. I'd say I don't think it is really 'RAI', but I think that RAI cannot really even be applied to 5e, lol. At least not in this sort of way.Right, but this inhibits our ability to say what is 'important', which you have certainly made a highly loaded feature of your interpretation! D&D traditionally doesn't do a particularly good job of defining important or even relevant, and a lot of debate on various points of procedure and agenda seem to hinge on that. In this case whether or not we engage stochastic resolution mechanisms and associated conventions hinges on it. This can be illustrated by imagining a 'DW-esque' set of agenda and principle statements. We can easily see how something along these lines would hugely clarify 'important' and 'meaningful'. I might even be willing to accede to the assertions about the 'no progress' statement were something like that present in the game which would tend to put a clear definition of 'progress' on the table.Heck, I even think it might be possible to make these various bits fairly coherent if we put an OD&D-esque (implicit) agenda on things. I suspect the result would be kind of to 'null out' no progress, it just would never happen, lol.Well, in that case you are certainly playing VERY hard and fast in the realm of DM power, the players are virtually relegated to the most peripheral of roles in this case. That is, they don't even really have control over meaningful actions of their own characters, effectively, only over ones that "don't matter". At most they can REFUSE TO DO ANYTHING.</blockquote>

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