Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6232171" data-attributes="member: 27160">Sorry to be in-and-out in this thread - much to do at present...Speaking for myself, the "GM fiat" issue I have with older editions is not really with the "fringe" activities or off-the-wall manoeuvres and such like. Those are going to require fiat or negotiation or some such with any RPG, at some point.My problem is really with rules that require GM fiat, not because the rules don't cover a specific effect, situation or action but because the designers apparently thought that an arbitrary decision by the GM would be the best thing for the game.I'm thinking here of:- copious situations where something might or might not be allowed "at DM discretion".- "Charm" type spells where the target "viewed the caster as a friend". What sort of friend? The sort of friend a lifeboatman is to a drowning sailor he's never met? The sort of friend J.R. Ewing was to his brother Bobby? The sort of friend Short Round was to Indiana Jones? What does this effect mean? The GM has to decide, because the rules simply don't say.- "Illusion" type spells that deal with what a monster or NPC will believe and how they will react. Is that illusory bridge "obviously solid" or will they treat it with the sort of caution player characters would treat an unknown bridge in a dungeon environment? If they know the bridge wasn't there this morning, will that change their view? How do we know if they "knew it wasn't there this morning" or not?In all these cases and more, the GM has to make arbitrary and fiat decisions - not because this is a situation the rules writer didn't cover, but because of some specific element that the rules writer specifically included into the rules of the game.This is something 4E doesn't do*, and I am eternally grateful for that when I run it.*: Apart from a couple of additions in Essentials, but those were a retrograde and misjudged late inclusion, in my view.</blockquote>

Verification