Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6993975" data-attributes="member: 42582">Well, it wasn't put forward as an adjudication tool. It was put forward to analyse the relationship between mechanics and fiction (does the mechanical resolution impact the fiction? does the fictional state impact the mechanical resolution?), because Baker was trying to understand what had gone wrong in one of his designs (In A Wicked Age).But I also think it sheds some light on D&D combat - there's a reason that classic D&D combat can turn into "number bingo" in a way that (say) RM or RQ combat can't. Which is because not only hp deductions, but also the to hit roll itself, can turn into cubes-to-cubes with no reference to the fiction.I also suspect that this may helps explain why the view that combat contrasts with roleplaying, and that mechanics are a burden on roleplaying, seems a fairly widespread belief among D&D players. Well, the player has an intent for the action declaration: seal the Abyss! My first question is, how do you propose to achieve that? He explains what his PC is going to do (as I posted upthread), which seems reasonable in the context of the fiction. There is then the generation of various rightward arrows: "I'm trying to seal the Abyss" - "OK, that's a Hard Arcana check"; "I'm going to give of my chaotic essence to help create this zone of ultimate entropy" - "OK, deduct the requisite number of surges/hp for +2 per surge/surge-worth to a maximum of +8"; "I'm going to use my ability to spatially manipulate my magic to stretch out my zone of darkness to fill the zone of entropy" - "OK, that requires expenditure Stretch Spell"; etc.Of course that's regimenting it a bit more than the reality of the table, but it basically gets the structure of what happened. The fact that it rests on the GM's adjudicative discretion doesn't affect it, from the point of view of cloud/cube analysis. It's like the OP diagram, where being on the high ground (a state in the fiction) grants +2 to the attack roll (a mechanical state of affairs). That part of the diagram doesn't need to change, whether - as in some versions of AD&D - there is an express bonus in the rules granted for being on higher ground or whether - as in Moldvay Basic, or Burning Wheel - the GM would have to adjudicate the bonus as part of his/her job. (In the example of play in Moldvay Basic, when the hobgoblins come in Silverleaf says to them, in their own language, "It's OK, Gary sent us". The GM allows this to grant a bonus on the reaction roll. That's clouds ("friendly greeting") to cubes ("bonus on the reaction roll"), and not less so because it turns on ad hoc GM adjudication rather than some stipulated mechanic.)There's no need to make reference to any social contract here; it falls outside the rules.A circles check is made to meet up with someone you know. The possible range of people you might know is settled by your lifepaths (which were determined during PC building) plus traits that can be earned during play and add new circles. And if the check fails, the GM is at liberty to narrate either (i) you didn't find the person you were hoping to, or (ii) you meet someone (perhaps the person you were looking for, perhaps someone else) who is opposed to you. If the GM opts for (ii) - "the enmity clause" - then that must fit into the fiction in an appropriate way.* So the mechanic combines backstory generation and reaction rolls into a single resolution framework.It can no more be a consequence of a circles check that the PC becomes (or is revealed to be) an archangel of infinite power, then it can be a consequence of a roll to hit in D&D that a character plane shifts to the Nine Hells.[size=-2]*Eg at one point the sorcerer in my game, being broke, made a circles check hoping to meet up with Jabal, the leader of his cabal, and be offered some work. The check failed, and so instead (as determined by me, the GM, activating the enmity clause) Jabal's hired help Athog turned up and told the PC that Jabal was instructing him to leave town, now!, because of a cursed item he was carrying.[/size]</blockquote>

Verification