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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9440983" data-attributes="member: 42582">I only play RPGs with conventional allocations of GM and player roles: 4e D&D; occasionally AD&D; Classic Traveller; Prince Valiant; MHRP (and variants); Burning Wheel; Torchbearer 2e; occasionally In A Wicked Age; etc.Most of these don't require "rulings" from the GM, because their rules clearly establish parameters for who gets to say what when. Occasionally they do. The more that the rules set out to "model" the fiction, and hence have to be mapped to the fiction in a systematic fashion, the more often this comes up.In my most recent Torchbearer session, I had to make a couple of rulings: which skill permits determining, by inspection from the docks, whether the rowers in a river galley are free or enslaved? (My answer: Sailor.) Which skill permits identifying the use for a strange tool in the same vessel's galley (= kitchen)? (My answer: Cook.) But allowing the tool, once identified, to provide +1D to a Cook test was not a ruling. That's just applying the general rule for the use of gear in a skill test.I think there is a particular reason why traditional D&D spells require so many rulings: it's because they typically do not factor into any general resolution process (traditional D&D not having any general resolution process for non-combat actions), and so end up being adjudicated by way of a combination of direct adjudication of the fiction and purely mechanical specifications of their effects. And there is generally no consequence for casting an unsuccessful spell, nor any sense of difficulty or risk in magic use, so the GM's rulings carry a lot of weight in determining the ebb and flow of success and failure.Implementing a Command or Compel-type spell in Torchbearer, say, would be pretty straightforward, because it would allow a difficulty to be set (say, base Ob equal to the target's Will or Nature, with additional factors applying if the command would be (i) embarrassing, (ii) dangerous or (iii) deadly to perform, and/or (iv) contrary to the target's Instinct and/or Belief). And the higher the obstacle, the greater the likelihood of failure and hence the greater the risk involved in trying wacky commands against powerful targets. The system also has a clear action economy outside of as well as within combat (ie the Grind), which can be used to determine the effect of commands (eg a command that lasts for 1 turn is different from the Wormtongue spell that has a permanent effect).But D&D doesn't have any of this: no simple way of modulating difficulty based on desired consequence; and no system for failure (eg your attempt to magically compel the victim to drown themself angers the spirit of these waters, who now manifests to challenge you!).In D&D, if the target makes their saving throw the only setback to the player is a "wasted" action. So the player is incentivised to try and find cunning commands that can have higher impact for the same risk; and the GM is incentivised to rely on their adjudication of the fiction, and/or their "rulings", to push back. I share [USER=22779]@Hussar[/USER]'s dislike for this sort of dynamic.</blockquote>

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