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A case where the 'can try everything' dogma could be a problem
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6673557" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I thought you were articulating a simulationist agenda - but this only makes sense assuming a certain sort of gamism!</p><p></p><p>To give <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?440504-The-Abyss-sealed-the-drow-freed-the-campaign-reaches-its-climax" target="_blank">an example from actual play</a>: if I, as GM, "empower" a PC to seal off the Abyss if his player is prepared to permanently sacrifice two abilities, plus enough healing surges/hit points to risk death, how is that meaningless? Making the choice expresses the player's willingness to sacrifice his PC's position in the fiction in order to achieve an outcome in the fiction, namely, the sealing off of the Abyss.</p><p></p><p>In most RPG systems that use or permit relatively open-ended "descriptor"-based action declarations and resolution, there is no divorcing of the abilities of a PC from the GM's inclination towards "empowering".</p><p></p><p>Once again I'm puzzled how you are the authority on what counts as an RPG.</p><p></p><p>For instance, AD&D uses devices - hit points, saving throws - which <em>are expressly stated</em> to be mechanics that constrain the fiction by reference to success or failure (for instance, a successful poison save might mean that the stinger failed to break the skin, and this narration is acceptable because hit point loss needn't correlate to physical injury). This is no different in basic structure from a skill challenge, and was part of a RPG published in the late 1970s and an immediate descendant of the original RPG.</p><p></p><p>The passage quoted is also a non-sequitur: if the PC's abilities are determined by natural-language descriptors rather defined in terms that interact with mechanical systems, then there is no way to adjudicate a players' action declaration without thinking about what makes sense in the fiction.</p><p></p><p>For instance, in the 1st ed PHB there are no mechanics to govern a ranger's ability to survive in the wild, just the class description of being skilled in woodcraft. A player can't declare actions based on this, nor a GM adjudicate them, without having regard to what is permissible within the fiction, and what might or might not make sense.</p><p></p><p>Moldvay Basic also has an example that seems to contradict your dictates of what is permissible in a RPG: it advises the GM how to adjudicate a player's desire to have his/her PC jump into a chasm in the dungeon, in order to escape certain death from foes, with the hope that a stream below will let the PC survive the fall. The GM wouldn't consider the presence of an underground stream at the bottom of the chasm except for the player's action declaration making it salient.</p><p></p><p>You're correct that that's not a rationing system <em>if the game allows climbing out of the pit</em>. (Unless you also take damage, in which case hit points become the rationing device.)</p><p></p><p>That's why Burning Wheel does not permit retries, and takes a much more robust approach to consequences.</p><p></p><p>The reason you can't try again is because the game system doesn't permit retries. Once you're in the pit, you have to proceed from there.</p><p></p><p>What counts as a retry depends a bit on context. In my BW game, for instance, when one of the players failed a check to have a character jump from one sailing ship to another, s/he fell in the drink and was out of the action for the rest of the scene (as it was assumed the character dog paddled around until the NPC sailors not involved in the scene could pull him to safety).</p><p></p><p>So in the context of the pit, the character might climb out, but by the time s/he gets out whatever was interesting/important about getting across it will have already gone down.</p><p></p><p>"No retries" is also a very old thing in RPGing. AD&D limits retries for a number of thief skills (either no retries, or one per level, for locks and traps).</p><p></p><p>If you can't spot a chink, then it really makes no difference whether it's there but you can't exploit it, or it's not there at all.</p><p></p><p>Whether a failed knowledge or perception check in BW determines a metaphysical state of affairs ("no chink") or merely an epistemic one ("no chink observable and hence exploitable by the PC") depends on context. The idea that a knowledge check might determine backstory also goes back at least to AD&D - I quoted the DMG upthread indicating that a successful Read Languages check by a thief indicates that "the language is, in fact, one which the thief has encountered sometime in the past." I don't think many AD&D players have had trouble making sense of this.</p><p></p><p>In all these cases, rationing is by way of skill checks without retries, rather than by way of metagame mechanics.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6673557, member: 42582"] I thought you were articulating a simulationist agenda - but this only makes sense assuming a certain sort of gamism! To give [url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?440504-The-Abyss-sealed-the-drow-freed-the-campaign-reaches-its-climax]an example from actual play[/url]: if I, as GM, "empower" a PC to seal off the Abyss if his player is prepared to permanently sacrifice two abilities, plus enough healing surges/hit points to risk death, how is that meaningless? Making the choice expresses the player's willingness to sacrifice his PC's position in the fiction in order to achieve an outcome in the fiction, namely, the sealing off of the Abyss. In most RPG systems that use or permit relatively open-ended "descriptor"-based action declarations and resolution, there is no divorcing of the abilities of a PC from the GM's inclination towards "empowering". Once again I'm puzzled how you are the authority on what counts as an RPG. For instance, AD&D uses devices - hit points, saving throws - which [I]are expressly stated[/I] to be mechanics that constrain the fiction by reference to success or failure (for instance, a successful poison save might mean that the stinger failed to break the skin, and this narration is acceptable because hit point loss needn't correlate to physical injury). This is no different in basic structure from a skill challenge, and was part of a RPG published in the late 1970s and an immediate descendant of the original RPG. The passage quoted is also a non-sequitur: if the PC's abilities are determined by natural-language descriptors rather defined in terms that interact with mechanical systems, then there is no way to adjudicate a players' action declaration without thinking about what makes sense in the fiction. For instance, in the 1st ed PHB there are no mechanics to govern a ranger's ability to survive in the wild, just the class description of being skilled in woodcraft. A player can't declare actions based on this, nor a GM adjudicate them, without having regard to what is permissible within the fiction, and what might or might not make sense. Moldvay Basic also has an example that seems to contradict your dictates of what is permissible in a RPG: it advises the GM how to adjudicate a player's desire to have his/her PC jump into a chasm in the dungeon, in order to escape certain death from foes, with the hope that a stream below will let the PC survive the fall. The GM wouldn't consider the presence of an underground stream at the bottom of the chasm except for the player's action declaration making it salient. You're correct that that's not a rationing system [I]if the game allows climbing out of the pit[/I]. (Unless you also take damage, in which case hit points become the rationing device.) That's why Burning Wheel does not permit retries, and takes a much more robust approach to consequences. The reason you can't try again is because the game system doesn't permit retries. Once you're in the pit, you have to proceed from there. What counts as a retry depends a bit on context. In my BW game, for instance, when one of the players failed a check to have a character jump from one sailing ship to another, s/he fell in the drink and was out of the action for the rest of the scene (as it was assumed the character dog paddled around until the NPC sailors not involved in the scene could pull him to safety). So in the context of the pit, the character might climb out, but by the time s/he gets out whatever was interesting/important about getting across it will have already gone down. "No retries" is also a very old thing in RPGing. AD&D limits retries for a number of thief skills (either no retries, or one per level, for locks and traps). If you can't spot a chink, then it really makes no difference whether it's there but you can't exploit it, or it's not there at all. Whether a failed knowledge or perception check in BW determines a metaphysical state of affairs ("no chink") or merely an epistemic one ("no chink observable and hence exploitable by the PC") depends on context. The idea that a knowledge check might determine backstory also goes back at least to AD&D - I quoted the DMG upthread indicating that a successful Read Languages check by a thief indicates that "the language is, in fact, one which the thief has encountered sometime in the past." I don't think many AD&D players have had trouble making sense of this. In all these cases, rationing is by way of skill checks without retries, rather than by way of metagame mechanics. [/QUOTE]
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