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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 6991442" data-attributes="member: 85870">While I'm generally a proponent of "causal" relationships between mechanics and fiction in RPGs, I do think this categorization is incorrect in some aspects. (As a side note, I just re-read what I posted originally way-back-when about dissociative mechanics. Yikes. It's good to no longer be stuck in such a narrow-minded, D&D 3.x-centric viewpoint.)I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that someone who builds a character to be good at sword fighting doesn't want narrative control during sword fights. And OF COURSE they want a character who "wins" at swordfighting---because that's their avenue to narrative control. A character who doesn't win at sword fighting in an RPG doesn't generally get to control much of anything in the fiction. As far as the bigger picture of the thread goes, the clear outlier here is cube-to-cube interaction, as it is the only type that fundamentally excludes the possibility of interplay with the fiction. If the question is, "Can this interaction directly affect or be directly derived from the current fictional state?" then cube-to-cube interaction is the only one where the answer is "No."<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Cube to cube -- No. Example: "Because you're the second person to act in initiative order this round, you have to take a -2 to all actions." "Wait, what? Why?" "Dunno, man, that's just what the rules say. There's absolutely no logical reason in the shared fiction it should be this way, but it just is." </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Cube to cloud -- Yes. No explanation necessary. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Cloud to cube -- Yes. Should also be self-explanatory. I think any of us can come up with a number of ways in which a pre-established aspect of the fiction can later be determined to have a mechanical effect. Any time a GM sets a DC for a check, I think this applies---mechanics follow the pre-existing fiction as the GM understands it. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Cloud to cloud -- Yes. Any time the group agrees through social contract / discussion that the fictional state has changed, it simply changes. Period. It is agreed. </li> </ul>But the problem I'm seeing here is that there's a huge undefined region within the cube-to-cloud space as to how the cube "outputs" parse into the cloud "inputs". There's a gigantic, massive leap to go from, "I swing a sword. My dice roll is a 22, which is a hit; my damage roll does 16 HP damage to the Ogre. Is it still standing?" to, "I roll my dice, and because I succeeded at my Control Universal Laws of Reality check, the Ogre is now a banana."  (Obviously, no offense is intended to actual bananas, [MENTION=2067]I'm A Banana[/MENTION]) So how is the cube-to-cloud interaction model supposed to represent both of these potential resolutions?</blockquote>

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