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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 6550095" data-attributes="member: 97077">We can certainly get fancier with the narrative if you like - I only offered that as a brief example. The result of what the player described is narrated by the DM. The dice are invoked when the DM says so. It could be said that smart play as a player is to try to rob randomness of its power and not have to invoke rules or dice since getting dice involves means there is a chance to fail. Is it wiser to just try for auto-success?While I agree that a lot of people see the combat rules that way, maybe that's not the way it's meant to be (if they can be said to be meant to be a certain way). What if we consider the possibility that Rule 0 is actually not applicable at all because the DM isn't changing rules? Rather, he or she is simply bringing rules into play as necessary to resolve uncertainty. The rules themselves aren't being changed. They're just being applied as needed to serve the goals of play and set aside when they are not needed. If the DM doesn't think the player's attack has a chance to miss, there is no reason to bring in the attack roll mechanic, for example. The DM isn't changing the rules the rules for attacking here, right?They also say that players describe what they want to do and the DM narrates the results of the adventurers' action, "often" using dice to determine a result. Sometimes the action has a certain result, but sometimes it is uncertain and the DM makes the call as to whether that's the case and what mechanic to use. This could suggest the player shouldn't necessarily rely on the rules to govern their choices, but rather what they know of the campaign world, the context of the situation, and to some extent the DM. From there, they make the best decisions they can to avoid the invocation of mechanics and, if they fall short, have a decent character that can pick up the slack with bonuses and features.Time to run my weekly Thursday night game, so I won't be back at this thread till Friday. Thanks for the discussion, all!</blockquote>

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