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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6229981" data-attributes="member: 42582">As best I can tell, the approach to game play that you are advocating is one based on freeform descriptions by players that are then adjudicated by the GM without reference to any general framework of the 4e style.Whatever the merits or demerits of such an approach, I don't accept that it has some special or privileged relationship to imaginative RPGing.I don't entirely see how you can imagine yourself in the gameworld without having some conception of what resources are available to you as a player (correlating, at least in part, to capabilities of the character). For example, how can you imagine yourself as an inspirational battle captain without knowing something about your capacity to inspire? Or as a happy-go-lucky daredevil without knowing something about how lucky you are likely to be?This relates back to a point [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] made upthread.The reason I thought it might be hard to be an "improvisational" battle captain was because you said the GM's response should be "That will be very, very difficult, but you can try . . ."I'm still curious as to how you would adjudicate the inspirational battle captain leading the charge in Moldvay Basic, or AD&D, or Next.I'm also curious as to the metric on which "near impossibility" is determined. For instance, for magic-users the test obviously is not real-world possibility. Suppose a MU wants to use Charm Person to persuade a sleeping guard to talk in his sleep and reveal the password - how hard is this? And how is it adjudicated?Or suppose a PC who is conceived as a happy-go-lucky daredevil wants to jump from the castle tower into the moat 80' below. How is that adjudicated? By reference to real world criteria of difficulty? (And how do we compare the PC to the capabilities of real world acrobats and divers?)There are different ways of answering these questions, and different versions of D&D seem to support different answers. For instance, my take on Moldvay Basic is that Charm Person can't be used to persuade a sleeping guard to reveal a password in his sleep - spells are confined to their descriptions. And the jump into the moat is to be adjudicated by the GM assinging a % chance of success - with no real mechanism for factoring in level, or thief class, or anything else.My take on 4e is that the use of a Charm spell to persuade the sleeping guard to reveal a password is to be adjudicated as an Arcana check - everything else being equal, a Hard check. And the jump into the moat would be an Acrobatics check, with the difficulty also probably at Hard - and making it to Medium probably interpreted as a successful jump but damage at the appropriate level for a bad landing.4e handles the Battle Captain via class-specific powers, and to confer bonus actions through improvisation would at a minimum have to cost an encounter power. I don't think in Moldvay Basic it is possible to confer bonus actions through improvisation. But I'm interested in other opinions on how this might be handled.This fits with my sense of how classic D&D handles the archetype. It means that, in a game in which NPCs will have little or no practical signficance in resolving challenges, it is impossible to play a battle captain as anything other than colour. Which isn't per se objectionable, but does bring out a distinctive feature of 4e.OK, but if they don't then why lie? The fact that it matters to the players seems, if anything, a reason to be truthful.I agree with TwoSix. This came up in the long Fighters vs Spellcasters thread. [MENTION=6701124]Cadence[/MENTION] had some quotes from Gygax's DMG. My reading of those quotes was that Gygax advocated strong GM authority over, and adjudication of, fictional positioning - which is a particularly important contributor to action resolution in classic D&D, given the comparative lack of mechanical systems outside of combat and dealing with dungeon doors and traps. But I don't think Gygax advocated that the GM could suspend action resolution at will - or should call for (say) an attack roll or a saving throw and then ignore its results, or roll an attack roll for a monster while disregarding a PC's AC in declaring a hit or a miss.And you don't need to do those things to adjudicate (say) doppelgangers, or cursed items, or illusions.The most natural reading, for me, of "the game" is the events and experiences of play. And I take it for granted that the players are co-creators of that.I take it for granted that world-building is also shared - for instance, players have primary authority for creating backstory around their PCs', their PCs' families and homelands, their PCs' mentors and organisaitons, etc. But the GM has responsibility for more of it, and also for backstory around the antagonists.Scene-framing I prefer as a GM role, because I think it is hard to ask players to set their PCs' own challenges. Refereeing and adjudication is a GM function, within the scope of the action resolution mechanics.I don't find it helpful to run these different things together, because it then becomes hard to draw distinctions that I think are pretty crucial across different approaches and different play experiences.This can be handled different ways. GM authority is only one approach. Negotiation and compromise/consensus is another. GM deference to players in matters that affect their PCs directly (eg race, family, mentor, organisation) is another. I personally like Luke Crane's advice in the Burning Wheel books - by which I mean I think it leads to satisfying play that engages everyone at the table.That sounds like one viable approach. It doesn't make me think we need GM authority to be stated as any sort of default or presupposition.I'm not sure about the "greater knowledge of where things are going". I don't see that the GM has to, or even should, have such knowledge. If the players are playing the protagonists, why don't they know where things are going?I haven't read that thread, and so have no advice to offer for these particular players. But I'd be surprised if a rulebook statement that the GM has absolute authority would make the problem go away.I have had this sort of problem playing Rolemaster. It was always solved via group discussion and consensus, not unilateral exercise of authority.</blockquote>

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