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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8145954" data-attributes="member: 42582">As I have posted, this is precisely the sort of RPG-as-puzzle solving that holds little interest for me as player or as GM.It's not resolved by GM fiat. It's resolved via GM-player consensus. No player action declaration has been contradicted or blocked from succeeding.The notion of validity that you use isn't one that I use or even fully grasp - as [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER] has said, there are many options that are possible but that might not be put on the table because no one thinks of them.I have no real idea of what you have in mind with the first bolded bit. All I can do is reiterate the notion of "say 'yes' or roll the dice"; this quote is from p 72 of BW Gold (available for free online; I linked to it upthread):Unless there is something at stake in the story you have created, don’t bother with the dice. Keep moving, keep describing, keep roleplaying. But as soon as a character wants something that he doesn’t have, needs to know something he doesn’t know, covets something that someone else has, roll the dice. Flip that around and it reveals a fundamental rule in Burning Wheel game play: When there is conflict, roll the dice. There is no social agreement for the resolution of conflict in this game. Roll the dice and let the obstacle system guide the outcome. Success or failure doesn’t really matter. So long as the intent of the task is clearly stated, the story is going somewhere.Classic Traveller is not a strictly "say 'yes' or roll the dice" system - in many ways it is closer to AW and moves. But as I posted upthread there is no when you tell a lie move/subsystem in Traveller. So I have to make a call. Is there conflict here to be resolved, such that I need to find a relevant subsystem - the most basic version being a check against a basic attribute, in this case INT?I decided that there is not. Lady Askola accepted von Jerrel's statement that he is not psionic.Does she really believe it? Does she accept it because she wants to believe it? These are open questions. It may be that they are put to the test, and perhaps answered, by subsequent play.This relates to the second bolded bit. The fact that the whole direction of the fiction turns on something doesn't mean that that something is at stake. In hi Adventure Burner, Luke Crane gives the example of a player narrating his acrobatic elf walking along the railing of a bridge high over a chasm. And points out that no check is called for, because it's mere colour. There is no conflict. The fact that the fiction would be very different if the elf fell to his death from the bridge doesn't mean that we have to check to see if such a thing happens; any more than we have to check to see whether a PC trips over and sprains an ankle when s/he walks out of the tavern door (though such things are clearly possible, and would affect the ensuing fiction).The effect of what happened in our session is that the player has been able to add new fiction: not only is Lady Askol in love with, or at least infatuated with, von Jerrel - but her attitude towards him, and treatment of him, depends on a lie. By "saying 'yes'" I've allowed the player to ramp up the pressure of the romantic situation. No conflict has been resolved by social agreement; rather, the stakes of possible future conflict have been stepped up. That's part of what a GM does, - or at least part of what I do as a GM - in modulating pacing, situation and the like.This is not neutral refereeing. But Classic Traveller does not tell the referee that s/he has to be neutral. From the 1977 rules:* Book 2, p 36: "When a ship enters a star system, there is a chance that any one of a variety of ships will be encountered. The ship encounter table is used to determine the specific type of vessel which is met. This result may, and should, be superseded by the referee in specific situations, especially if a newly entered system is in military or civil turmoil, or involves other circumstances." * Book 3, p 8: "[T]he referee should always feel free to impose worlds which have been deliberately (rather than randomly) generated. Often such planets will be devised specifically to reward or torment players." * Book 3, p 19: "The referee is always free to impose encounters to further the cause of the adventure being played; in many cases, he actually has a responsibility to do so."Although the Traveller mechanics are in many way rather process-simulation in their form, the referee is not expected to confine him-/herself to administering a "world simulation".</blockquote>

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