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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8932238" data-attributes="member: 42582">These are all propositions that only have meaning within a shared fiction. If those are the sorts of goals you're interested, I don't understand how you can deny the centrality of shared, negotiated imagination. Unless the other participants in the game somehow become obliged to imagine (say) that Nation X has declared war, how can you achieve your goal of having X tricked into declaring war?Until we talk about what power the GM has, and how (if at all) that might be constrained, we can't know anything about the connection between player action declarations and achieving the goals you describe.Will climbing the mountain help with lighting the signal fire? Not if there is a giant at the top who eats all climbers; or if there is a portal to the Plane of Ice which makes lighting fires impossible; or if the character loses all their fuel, tinder etc during the climb.There are RPGs with mechanics that govern these sorts of things, including DW, Torchbearer, Burning Wheel, and 4e's skill challenges.But you seem to be talking about RPGs with mechanics more like 3E D&D or RQ or RM, which do not govern the sorts of things I've mentioned. Which means that the mechanics do not mediate the utility of abilities for achieving goals.As far as telling that the goal has been achieved, in the sort of play you are advocating I understand that only the GM can do that. So the mechanics that govern the GM in this respect seem pretty important. Probably more important than the rules for skill check DCs!I don't know who you're attributing this assumption to. It doesn't apply in any RPG I play. To my mind, the bolded bit is a necessary assumption for skilled play in the Gygaxian mould. To render it unnecessary requires significant departures from Gygax's play procedures.D&D conflict is not task resolution - it's conflict resolution. (With hit points as the "clock".)  And it is intent-based resolution: the depletion of hit points does not just represent "Your struck the elemental with your sword" but "You  have pushed the elemental this much closer to your goal of its demise".It's possible to have an analogue to D&D combat for climbing a mountain to light a signal fire. 4e skill challenges are one model. But there are plenty of others too. The only one that I know of, in the space of RPGs that you seem to favour, is Rolemaster with its manoeuvre tables (though it's a bit "proto" in character - it will get you to the top of the mountain, but the GM is still at liberty to have a giant there who eats you!).</blockquote>

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