NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6231886" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't think they "enforce" this, in so far as a GM might ignore them or not use them.But they permit resolution without GM fiat. That is the respect in which they resemble FATE or MHRP and differ from (say) 2nd ed AD&D, which does not have a mechanic for (say) finding your way through the wilderness to the temple, or persuading the guard to open the gate, other than GM fiat.The GM of a 4e games establishes the adversity the confronts the PCs. S/he does not decide whether or not they can overcome it (assuming s/he is following the rules of the game). That is determined via the action resolution mechanics.The game has a lot of advice on building encounters. If you follow that advice, and if the players have followed the PC building rules, then you will not get situations in which the outcome is a foregone conclusion. Although it is more likely than not that the PCs will, in the end, overcome the challenge set - this is a default assumption of the game, and contrasts with (say) Burning Wheel - the pathway to that results, and the costs that will be borne along the way, will be determined via application of the action resolution rules.That is not how p 42 is intended to be used, at least as I read it. The GM is meant to judge fictional positioning and genre applicability: it is analogous to the "credibility test" in HeroWars/Quest or MHRP.The example given in the DMG is of a rogue swining on a rope (? chandelier?) and knocking an ogre into a brazier of coals. The GM adjudicates fictional positioning (yes, there is a rope and a brazier and an ogre in between them), and adjudicates credibility in genre terms (yes, in the gonzo fantasy genre rogues can kick ogres into braziers - contrast a hard physics genre, where the rogue will just crash into the ogre like a brick wall).But the GM is not expected to consider whether or not s/he thinks it would be good or bad for "the story" for the ogre to be kicked, or burned, or killed, or whether or not s/he wants the brazier to be knocked down or remain upright.</blockquote>

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