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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 2532719" data-attributes="member: 7240"><p>I think that this is essentially true. In my view, the reason for this is that older rule systems were less consistent and coherent so that a certain amount of GM hand-waving was required to make the game hang together at all.Agreed -- it did so my establishing a sufficiently consistent and comprehensive set of rules that regular GM intervention to keep the universe coherent was not required. As a result, players could more accurately predict the outcome of their actions and the GM was bound by a consistent, known, predictable system.Not entirely. One of the things about 3E being a coherent system is that there are features of the system that are true from one situation to the next; targeted or opposed D20 rolls, be they saves, combat, skills or ability checks, are always how things are decided. If a GM creates a new resolution mechanism, it is going to fit into this structure. In 1E, there was no expectation that the rules in one area of the game would use the same general principles as those in another. As a result, every new situation was, mechanically, a blank slate. In 3E, there are a bunch of implicit mathematical assumptions. These principles work in other ways too -- for instance, when I design a new magic item, in order to make it fit, I often have to first design the new spell or feat from which the item is derived. Because of the universality of the 3E system, if a GM does something inconsistent with it, it is immediately apparent, often glaringly so. And the fact that it can be detected, itself, limits such behaviour.You should try these short pithy posts more often! This is my favourite post of yours. The thing is: I don't see this as a counter-theory; it's just a different way of stating the one on the table. The absence of a resolution system for any category of action places control over the action's success or failure exclusively in the hands of the DM, after all.</p></blockquote><p></p>

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