Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 6680251" data-attributes="member: 6775031">If the thing exists, then a Perception check can find it. If the thing doesn't exist, then no amount of success on a Perception check can possibly find it. Whether that thing exists (and can be found) or doesn't exist (and thus cannot be found) should have been determined by the GM prior to the player character searching for that thing; it can't causally depend on whether or not the character is looking for it.The GM determines everything that happened with the past of the game-world, aside from personal details of a PC which the player negotiates with the GM prior to play beginning. Once the game starts, the player (in most editions of D&D, and many similar games) has zero authorship power beyond the in-game-world capabilities of the PC. Moreover, from a Sim/RP standpoint, the player doesn't want authorship power over any part of the world's history. The world is something which the GM (or world designer) creates, which the players explore and interact with via their characters. Asking a player to assume the author-stance detracts from in-character immersion. Asking a strong simulationist player to repeatedly assume the author-stance is effectively asking that player to leave the table, because this game isn't for them.And I strongly disagree. Whether the defender parries is something that happens right now, and is a direct reflection of something that is within the power of the character. The player doesn't author anything. The player makes decisions on behalf of the character, but it's entirely the character who successfully manages to control the outcome of an action.And if the character fails to hit, then it's the opposing character who succeeded in parrying or dodging or whatever. The fact that the rules (in D&D) give the defender a static AC of 10 + bonuses, rather than asking the defender to roll d20 + bonuses, is irrelevant to the fact that the defending character is actively defending. That +3 bonus to AC from high Dexterity is the defender exerting control within the game world.To contrast, any detail of the enemy's armor would have been determined long before this combat ever started, and is not something that the character has any control over (unless the PC actually had the opportunity to sabotage the opponent's armor at some earlier point). That fact of the game world is beyond the agency of the character, and is thus something that only the GM can determine, and which should have been determined prior to the check being made.Yeah, that's kind of the point. In a simulationist game, the players have no agency beyond that of their characters. Everything that happened within the game world, prior to the game actually starting, is a matter for the GM to determine. Everything that happens after the game starts is determined by the GM and the player characters.And it's not entirely a binary state, either. Games can be more or less simulationist, but the more you slide along the spectrum toward narrativism, the further away from simulation you end up.</blockquote>

Verification