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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6229515" data-attributes="member: 42582">It's not clear to me who decided in your AD&D game not to use weapon speed and reach mechanics - you say "we", but then you go on to imply that it's the GM who makes these sorts of decisions.Anyway, I'm glad you had fun playing your D&D game. I'm sorry you think I'm playing D&D wrong.This strikes me as underanalysed. Are you talking about world creation? Framing of scenes/encounters? Adjudication of action resolution? Does the GM have authority to rewrite PC backstories? To rewrite character sheets? To direct players how they are to spend PC build resources? If a player rolls a natural 20 on a to-hit roll against an ordinary orc, is a GM nevertheless entitled to stipulate that no hit occurs and no damage is dealt? (And if so, what was the point of having the player roll the die?)Depending on how authority is allocated across these (and other) aspects of play, the game comes out very differently. It's not at all clear to me that all editions of D&D all give the GM final authority over all these things. For instance, just to give one example, in AD&D the GM has authority over a MU PC's starting spells, but not over a fighter PC's starting weapon proficiencies.Can you actually explain to me how you would adjudicate this in Moldvay Basic? Or AD&D? Or D&Dnext?Also, how does the game better support imagination by making it "very, very difficult" to play an inspirational battle captain? In effect, you are reducing your rationing mechanisms to one dimension - random allocation of success - rather than the multiple dimensions that 4e uses to ensure that these sorts of abilities are widely available but nevertheless do not break the overall action economy of the game.That sounds like "say yes or roll the dice" - namely, saying yes. And why wouldn't you tell the players? What is the point of maintaining an illusion that dice rolls matter if in fact they don't?I have zero interest in "GM as story teller". That doesn't mean the GM simply plays "everyone else". As I play the game, the GM has a special role in relation to backstory and sceneframing. The GM also has a distinctive role in relation to action resolution, but it is very far from unconstrained.Why don't the players have comparable power? Why can't they exercise fiat to improve the game and the overall enjoyment of the game participants?</blockquote>

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