How? Only by engaging action resolution systems that do not depend upon PC stats - what we might call "free roleplaying", or, more pejoratively, "mother may I".
There are things to be said for and against free roleplaying and GM adjudication, but a game in which that is the main source of agency for a player is, in my view, well-positioned to head in one of two directions: (i) overwhelming GM force with the players mostly along for the ride; or, (ii) balance of power issues as the players - particularly those without good stats on their sheets - fight with one another, and with the GM, about the direction of the game.
The issue has nothing to do with "tactical wargaming". It is about the balance of power over the game among the players, and between the players and the GM.
For example, reaction rolls in AD&D aren't "tactical wargaming", but depending how a particular GM uses them, and how that GM adjudicates attempts by players to "free roleplay" around them, putting a high score in CHA may be worthwhile, or a complete waste of time.
Again, I think focusing on combat is a red herring. An RPG can have mechanical action resolution systems, and thereby give rise to issue of mechanical balance, outside of the combat arena. Consider the numerous debates about invisibility vs hide/move silently, for example.
I agree with the second part of the first sentence - the issue here is not about combat, but about action resolution mechanics. It only looks to be about combat because, as a purely contingent historical matter, D&D has had more robust combat resolution mechanics than other sorts of action resolution mechanics.
Your third sentence also, for me, perfectly frames the issue - if the GM is allowed to wield a lot of power, and the players accept this, then free roleplaying can compensate for mechanical weakness. But many groups do not want to play with the GM having that sort of power - and, as I said above, a game based around overwhelming GM power is frought with the potential for conflicts over that power.
This is true, but I think is just a prelude to the real issue, which is "can free roleplaying compensate for, or override, differences in player agency created by the distribution of purely mechanical power".
I agree that this is the issue, except that "party/story" component have a narrow meaning here, because they relate back to the DM using his/her power to meld the party together and drive the story. Whereas some groups like to play in such a way that the players meld the party together and drive the story. Which requires player agency that is, to some extent at least, independent of the GM - not necessarily independent of GM adjudication, but consisting in more than just the power to ask the GM for a favour.
That is one possibility, but not the only one, and for many players not their preferred one.
As a GM, for example, I like my power to be clearly demarcated and constrained. I don't want to be responsible for making the game fun in the way you describe. I want to play a game that will take care of that itself, so I can concentrate on what I like doing as a GM, which is setting up situations for the players to engage via their PCs, and adjudicating the resolution of those engagments.
Again, this is one way to play the game. It's not the only way.
This isn't quite how I would describe my own approach to GMing, but it sets out one good reason as to why "more GM power, invoked and applied via free roleplaying" is not a universally viable solution to problems of mechanical imbalance.
These are both closer to my approach to GMing, and further illustrate why the "GM power" approach to action resolution isn't universally applicable.
This is another claim that is not universally true. In some playstyles - those in which the GM has strong authority over framing scenes/situations - the GM does not need to accept that the players will find ways around carefully crafted encounters. (Of course, in engaging those encounters things may turn out very differently from what the GM, or anyone else, expected. Situational authority is quite different from plot authority and railroading. But now we're not talking about bypassing an encounter but resolving it.)
I personally like using a fairly strong degree of situational authority as a GM, and don't want the game to assume unreflectively, and as a default, that the players will in fact enjoy such authority to an equal or greater extent.
I think that you are running together situational authority and plot authority. It's not as if a sandbox is the only alternative to a railroad. Instead you let the players direct the story, based on the situations that the GM frames. Some games have fancy mechanics that oblige the GM to frame situations in such a way as to incorporate player theamtic/story concerns etc, but even absent such mechanics a GM can be pretty confident that if they frame crappy scenes, one way or another their players will let them know.
Mostly I agreed with your post, but I don't think this is fair. [MENTION=6675987]Dellamon[/MENTION] is not saying that a good GM can fix the rules. S/he is saying (i) that the action resolution system has (potentially) two components: the mechanics, and the exercise of mechanically unmediated narrative power ("free roleplaying"); and (ii) that when this mechanically unmediated narrative power is in the hands of the GM, it can compensate for or override the imbalances one sees when looking purely at the mechanical elements of action resolution.
I'm not a big fan of that sort of system, for the reasons I've given - it is in my view a recipe for dysfunction, either in the form of dictatorial GMing or balance-of-power conflicts (and I've seen both in AD&D games, especially 2nd ed ones). But to advocate it is not to commit a fallacy.
I see these posts as evidence - from both player and GM perspective - of how a "GM power" approach has an inherent (but not inevitable) tendency to push in the direction of balance-of-power problems.
But Dellamon is advocating a different approach - one in which the players are free to focus on archetype etc because the GM will ensure that their PC is effective. I'm not myself arguing for that playstyle, but given it's historical importance in RPGing (including D&D, and especially I would say from the mid-80s through to at least the early 90s) I think it's important to be clear about it.
Maybe. But if a group are happy to cede the GM the necessary power, and are not particularly mathematically inclined, than maybe not. I think it's hard to generalise about this.
I don't agree with this. The issue of the way in which the mechanics should distribute power among the players is not just an issue for "an obnoxious group of players". It is relevant to any game in which player agency is at the forefront, because players exercise that agency by wielding their power. [MENTION=12401]Belphanior[/MENTION] gives a nice example, and I have no reason to think that s/he is obnoxious as either a player or a GM.
