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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 6991397" data-attributes="member: 6775031">A ring can be erased from your character sheet. When you drop the ring into the volcano, you erase it from your sheet and its weight no longer contributes toward your encumbrance. It doesn't exist only in your imagination. Maybe that was just poor wording on his part, though, in trying to fit HP into the cube side when there was no miniature or die to represent it.The model kind of breaks down when he starts referring to numbers and bonuses and whatnot. After all, the +2 bonus for having the high ground isn't a physical object that you can point to or hand to someone, but he clearly wants the bonus to count as a cube while the high ground itself is a cloud. It seems like he wants the game mechanics to count as cubes, while the underlying reality from which those mechanics derive count as clouds, but that's a counterproductive distinction; a hit for 8 damage represents a different reality than a hit for 7 or 9 damage, and it's not just a different cube representing the same cloud.In other games, perhaps, but it is not the case in D&D or any other game which follows the general model under discussion. In games of this type, the character's skill in swordfighting simply represents the likelihood that the character will succeed when swordfighting. The number on the sheet directly represents the literal skill of the character at wielding a sword. How much any given player cares about each area of the story is not a factor at any point during the game. During the pre-game (character building), the players declare what sorts of characters they want to play during the game, and they do their best to accurately represent those concepts given the constraints of the system. Wanting to play a character who is an amazing swordfighter is not the same as wanting a lot of narrative control over what happens during swordfights, though. It's not even saying that they want a character who often wins at swordfighting. It is simply saying that they want a character who is good at swordfighting, because that's the kind of character they want to play. Someone else may want to play a character who is particularly strong, or kind of dumb, or ridiculously good-looking; not because they want any particular scenario to unfold in any particular way, but just because that's the kind of character they want to play.You could even have a player who wants to play a Worf-type character - incredibly strong, yet frequently overcome in shows of direct strength. But what the player wants is not a factor in how the story unfolds. What a player wants is only a factor in which character they choose to play; after that point, they're limited to what the character wants, and they have zero agency within the game beyond their ability to express that.</blockquote>

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