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A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life
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<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7568832" data-attributes="member: 16814"><p>So, you agree it's random (although you'd prefer to point to specific rationales for that) and you say that, when it's interesting, you'd do oots of other GM decision making to determine the outcome (which still has a random element), but you reject out of habd the idea of building this into the mechanics as a check. Hmm.</p><p></p><p>I think this is a critical divide: do you use fiction to determine the mechanics or the mechanics to determine the fiction? To expand, the way you're approaching this is to say, "okay, all of these things may impact how this works, so let me figure out what all of these impacts are and how they apply to a check beforehand so I can tailor the check mechanics to best represent the fiction." On the other side, the idea is to use a fixed mechanic and the explain the results in the fiction as appropriate. For example of this, you mentioned headwinds as a complication. As you said, you'd determine the direction and severity and use that as an input to the check or determination (acknowledging that you may decide the outcome outright based on inputs). On the other side, the core resolution mechanics would be used first, and, on a fail, headwinds might be introduced as a cause.</p><p></p><p>To tie back to the OP, neither of these is more or less "realistic." In both cases, failure is caused by headwinds. The difference is really on if you're using GM determined fictional inputs to the mechanics or providing GM determine fictional outputs from the mechanics. It's worth noting that D&D strongky favors the former, as any given resolution first passes through a yes/no/maybe decision by the GM, and the the exact resolution mechanic and difficulty is determined by the GM. Since choice to use and then choice of mechanic is gated by fictionsl inputs, the first style of play is strongly incentivized by the system choice. Conversely, other systems use universal resolution mechanics that have built-in margins of pass/pass-with-complication/fail and the fiction flows out of the mechanics.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 7568832, member: 16814"] So, you agree it's random (although you'd prefer to point to specific rationales for that) and you say that, when it's interesting, you'd do oots of other GM decision making to determine the outcome (which still has a random element), but you reject out of habd the idea of building this into the mechanics as a check. Hmm. I think this is a critical divide: do you use fiction to determine the mechanics or the mechanics to determine the fiction? To expand, the way you're approaching this is to say, "okay, all of these things may impact how this works, so let me figure out what all of these impacts are and how they apply to a check beforehand so I can tailor the check mechanics to best represent the fiction." On the other side, the idea is to use a fixed mechanic and the explain the results in the fiction as appropriate. For example of this, you mentioned headwinds as a complication. As you said, you'd determine the direction and severity and use that as an input to the check or determination (acknowledging that you may decide the outcome outright based on inputs). On the other side, the core resolution mechanics would be used first, and, on a fail, headwinds might be introduced as a cause. To tie back to the OP, neither of these is more or less "realistic." In both cases, failure is caused by headwinds. The difference is really on if you're using GM determined fictional inputs to the mechanics or providing GM determine fictional outputs from the mechanics. It's worth noting that D&D strongky favors the former, as any given resolution first passes through a yes/no/maybe decision by the GM, and the the exact resolution mechanic and difficulty is determined by the GM. Since choice to use and then choice of mechanic is gated by fictionsl inputs, the first style of play is strongly incentivized by the system choice. Conversely, other systems use universal resolution mechanics that have built-in margins of pass/pass-with-complication/fail and the fiction flows out of the mechanics. [/QUOTE]
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