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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sylrae" data-source="post: 5780323" data-attributes="member: 48520">Monster Post. Will Sort."Player Powers" and "Disconnected Mechanics"Something you generally see in rules-lite systems, and something that tends to make me not want to play the game.And giving giving narrative control over the environment to the player is the sort of thing that "breaks verisimilitude for me" "disconnects me from immersion" or however else you'd like to phrase it.My rule 0 tends toward: "A player has control over the choices and actions of their character(s). That is all."If I'm giving up more than that, I'm not GMing, I'm moving to a shared narrative game where everyone is both player and GM, and rolling is less about what happens, and more about "who has narrative control in this situation". Then I can play while drinking, or something. Ant thats not the sort of game I'd like to play every week, but instead, one night in several months. Alright: "In the kind of  verisimilitude I want out of an ongoing RPG, is one with neither mechanics disassociated from the fiction, nor removed from the game worlld  making them /Player Powers/ instead of /Character Powers/."Both of those things grate on me, and the more of them there are, and the more blatantly they do so, the less likely I will enjoy the RPG. Additionally, I'm not a fan of "Narratively describe it however you want, without limits." Which I feel leads to alot of "Ugh. Please make it stop. Lets just not describe any actions, so I dont have to listen to this."Agreed.Random Chance, Set situations  where the power is plausible (when flanking, when standing on sand,  when standing on stone, etc), When the opponent isn't expecting that  maneuver (trip/disarm DC should go up after you fail).Ideally not by giving the narrative control over the setting to the player.Not for me it wouldn't, no.This is a big reason why I'm against giving the player narrative control of "outside their character."Characters in D&D Don't influence what eachother learn. That might be a pretty   cool optional subsystem. You could work in a mechanic where you pick up a small number of   abilities possessed by your teammates, to cover you picking up a couple   tricks from the other characters.MulticlassingHmm. Many RPGs (particularly classless ones) don't let you advance something you haven't been using.In D&D, I've been doing it the same way. If you're a fighter, and  you want to take a level of barbarian, I'd want to see the fighter start  acting barbariany (easy requirement). If he wants to take a level of  rogue, start using stealth skills or acrobatics skills. If he wants a  level of wizard, make a point of reading stuff.Likewise, if they talk to the party member of that class about how they do what they do, that will help.And of course getting a trainer is the third option. (Getting a trainer  is mandatory in Shadowrun - that's where all your money tends to go.)If a player says: "I'm taking a level in monk" that needs to be justified by things that happened in game. I will make the player explain to me in narrative terms why he should have a level in monk next. *OR* it may be obvious by how he's been acting and what he's been doing, in which case I'm likely to just allow it.I wouldn't mind seeing it as an official rule for D&D though.</blockquote>

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