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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 6673546" data-attributes="member: 6775031">If the DM empowers a player beyond the abilities of the character, then the outcome is meaningless. If a clever plan works out, because the DM decided to throw the player a bone, then you won because you're the protagonist in a story and not because of the merits of your plan. Likewise, if the DM arbitrarily blocks the plan, then the plan fails because the DM wanted it to fail, rather than because it really should have failed.The primary responsibility of the DM is to arbitrate fairly.There's a reason why the skill-challenge edition failed, and this was one of them. In a role-playing game, the state of the fiction is all that matters, and success or failure are meaningless terms except in how they relate to that fiction. Players have no ability to alter the fiction beyond what their characters possess, or else you are crossing the line between role-playing and story-telling. If you want to play a story-telling game, then there are plenty to choose from (including that one edition of D&D). You're really stretching the definition of a rationing system. Actions have consequences, and that's a given. If you fail a jump check, and fall into a pit, then that's not a rationing system; that's just causality.If you fail to climb out, though, then you fall and take damage (or whatever), but I don't see why you would be unable to try again. What, is your fall supposed to trigger a rock-slide that makes it impassable?And that's just... weird. The quality of an opponent's armor cannot possibly depend on how good you are at observing that armor, any more so than the existence of a particular item within a particular market can depend upon your ability to find it. There are no words to express how little sense such a system would make.</blockquote>

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