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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kinematics" data-source="post: 7809592" data-attributes="member: 6932123">It feels like there are several advocates for "Goal and Approach" that are each individually moving goalposts when it comes to replying to anyone else's comments on the system.  If A makes a statement that B disagrees with, C will come along and say that B is wrong because that's not how it works.  If B then replies to C, A comes along and makes another statement that changes the meaning again, without acknowledging that change.It doesn't help that there's a ton of extra, undefined terminology being tossed around.From what I see, the "Goal and Approach" concept at its most basic level is fundamentally required in order to play an RPG at all.  "What are you doing?" "[possibly implicit X] [with optional method Y]". It may include either or both goal and approach. The goal may be explicit ("Sneaking past the orcs"), or implicitly indicated by the method chosen ("Can I roll Insight?").  The approach may be explicit (described) or implicit (indicating which mechanic the player wants to use).At that point, GAA isn't a "methodology"; it's just the bare minimum to allow you to say that you're running a game. If you don't have at least that much, either the players aren't doing anything at all, or the GM isn't letting them do anything, and is just telling his own story to a captive audience.And many of the statements made in the thread seem to drop into this definition of GAA, on both sides of the argument, because this level of definition is implicitly true.Also note that at this point, GAA is mechanics agnostic.  Whether you're dealing with the non-mechanics of Amber, or the heavy mechanics of Rolemaster, or just D&D in general, it all works the same.  So this is not a useful terminology for what seems to be a contentious issue.Iserlith's usage of the term seems to be taking the basics of GAA and adding the requirement of explicitness in all aspects.  You can't just say, "I roll Insight", with the implicit understanding of the goal; you have to explicitly state what the goal is, and you have to give an explicit approach, rather than using the system mechanics to implicitly handle that.  So for the time being, I'll consider Iserlith's version of GAA to be "explicit goal and approach" — EGAA. (If this does not match your actual intent with the term, please provide a correction.)Now, the mechanics of the game are in part constructed in order to allow the players to engage implicitly. For example, Fireball has already been defined. I don't have to explain the narrative details of my casting the spell; I just need to say, "I cast Fireball at the orc."  The goal is implicit, and the approach is implicit.  The mechanics handle the details. This would be in contrast to a game like Mage, where (by default) spells are not pre-defined, and you must describe how you intend to accomplish a given spell effect using the various spheres you're skilled in. (Though eventually you'll probably refine them to "spells" so that you don't have to repeat the same stuff each time the situation comes up.)However that then feeds back into how EGAA interacts with the mechanics. In some, such as knowledge checks, the EGAA requirements conflict with the mechanics.  The mechanics allow an action that is fundamentally implicit — it's difficult to construct an explicit description of how you think — but the EGAA requires explicitness.  This is then considered a failure in the mechanics, rather than a limitation in EGAA, with respect to how the proponents respond to others in the thread.Alternatively, in combat the mechanics make a ton of stuff implicit in order to speed up play.  You could use EGAA here, but it just slows things down.  Some may want the extra theatrics, and some may simply want things to be streamlined.  People who are saying that GAA "still works" in combat are changing their definition from EGAA to GAA. GAA works because that's just how gaming works in general, and the mechanics are built around that.  However it's not the same thing as EGAA, and arguments against the EGAA proponents are ignored by said proponents by moving the goalposts — implying that they were using GAA all along.This then interacts with the mechanics of the specific game system.  If the game system provides implicit (predefined) elements, those are expected to be used, and EGAA can come into conflict with them because it doesn't want anything to be implicit.  If the game system only provides the core mechanics, and not predefined implicit components, then EGAA can be overlaid on that without conflict.So, overall, I think this is what is the underlying cause of the conflict in this thread: That there are two separate, but associated, ideas being used that are named using the same term, and not everyone is always using the term to mean the same thing all the time.</blockquote>

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