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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8286628" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think that, in this post, "skilled play" is being used similarly to how [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] uses it in the OP: that is to say, with an ordinary language meaning along the lines of play that exemplifies technical skill.[USER=71699]@clearstream[/USER] is getting a bit confounded, I think - but also doing some confounding too - because in D&D/RPG tradition there is a somewhat jargonistic use of "skilled play" to mean the sort of play associated with Gygax (and for White Dwarf aficionados,  Lewis Pulsipher). "Skilled play" in this jargonistic sense is about play of the fiction in a fashion that is exemplified by the play of modules like B2 (getting the tribes to turn on one another), X2 (puzzling out the interrelationships among the Amber family members; solving riddles; etc), and of course S1 and S2 (so many tricks and traps of all degrees of outre-ness). In this latter usage, mathematical or "picking from lists" optimisation of the sort that is important in (say) 3E D&D PC building - which requires skill in the ordinary language sense but isn't about granular engagement with the fiction to work through a pre-authored trick/trap - doesn't count as skilled play; whereas as per my post just upthread, a game with little of that technical skill involved might still evince Gygaxian skilled play if it does focus n that sort of play of the fiction (T&T is a candidate example; and I reckon some Classic Traveller play over the decades has also looked a bit like this).I think once the fact that there are two somewhat overlapping but not identical uses of the phrase "skilled play" is made explicit, the confounding should all be dispelled. (Maybe that's too optimistic? But I hope not.)This seems like an attempt to characterise Gygaxian/Pulsipherian skilled play.It seems OK, but has some components that I personally think are a bit distracting.For instance, is the location of the PCs on a map a mechanical state of affairs? In 4e D&D combat resolution, the answer is yes: the "battlemap" is a shared physical entity on which the participants move tokens as part of the process of action declaration and resolution. But in classic D&D play (OD&D, AD&D, B/X) the map is not shared, it is secret to the GM; and so the location of the PCs is at least arguably a purely imagined state of affairs with the GM's copy of the map as much as anything an aide-memoire for the GM to help keep track of and adjudicate the fiction.While I think the issues raised in the previous paragraph can be interesting to explore, and would feed into a consideration of what is the role of mapping in classic D&D and T&T and similar dungeoneering play, it doesn't need to be resolved to make sense of the idea of Gygaxian skilled play.I would say the same thing about any mechanic can be SP or not SP. What is key to Gygaxian skilled play is engaging the fiction: the players make moves by engaging the fiction at a conventionally-established level of appropriate granular detail, and the results of those action declarations are determined by extrapolating from the fiction. Again, look at the "fair trap" thread for examples of that sort of thing being talked through in great detail! It's kind-of secondary to that, and even a bit arbitrary, that D&D traditionally interposes checks/dice rolls between some declarations and extrapolations, and not others. Why does AD&D require a dice roll to extrapolate from the muscled fighter hurls himself, shoulder first, at the stuck door to the door bursts open, surprising the ogre behind it. but not to extrapolated from the wily thief pokes the floor ahead of her with a 10' pole, depressing the pressure plate and harmlessly trigger the trap? There's no a prior reason why the latter doesn't require a DEX check of some sort (with failure meaning the prodding is ineffectual, or trigger the trap inadvertently or whatever); this is just how D&D happened to evolve based on what made sense to Gygax et al back in the early 1970s! And as I already posted, there are some cases where there is no clear answer within the scope of the rules as to whether or not a check is needed to extrapolate the fiction - like shooting a fire arrow at a nearby static target.Notice that even [USER=16814]@Ovinomancer[/USER]'s coin-flip mechanic could be part of Gygaxian skilled play if the trigger for using it was to determine an extrapolation where the system dictates that the participants (or perhaps the GM as lead participant) is not allowed to extrapolate purely naturalistically. D&D saving throws, especially at low levels, and T&T saving rolls made on Luck, are rather close to this! What creates room for skilled playing those systems isn't the presence or absence of some version of a coin toss at key moments, but rather that those key moments are elements in a larger process of the participants working with the fiction at quite a granular level.Here are some resolution systems that contrast with that sort of approach: the whole of a 4e skill challenge; determining, in any version of D&D combat whether or not the declaration of I attack the Orc with my sword results in a win or loss for the PC; resolving interstellar travel in Classic Traveller (which requires multiple throws to determine that no drives fail and that the jump is successful, but at no point require the player of the Chief Engineer to decide the degree to which s/he is going to overload the flux capacitor in the warp drive while shifting all power to the nuclear dampers!).But in each of the above there is room for at least a little bit of skill in a non-jargonistic, ordinary language sense of cleverly leveraging the game mechanics: in any version of D&D with a cleric in the party we can decide that now is a good time to use the Bless spell (I can;t remember if 4e D&D has a clerical Bless spell but it has a paladin daily Wrath of the Gods that occupies a similar decision-space) to help expedite our victory vs the Orcs; in a 4e skill challenge there is the scope to deploy various limited resources like rerolls, augments and the like at crucial moments; and even in Classic Traveller - which has very little mechanical resource deployment of the D&D sort - there is scope to do better or worse in allocating a limited suite of available personnel to various starship operation functions (eg Do we put this character with Engineering-2 and Gunnery-1 in charge of the drives or in charge of the triple laser turret?).</blockquote>

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