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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8398134" data-attributes="member: 42582">By fictional positioning I mean the immediate fictional context in which the PC is located eg my PC has a gun in her handbag; is on the fourth floor of an apartment building; the windows in the apartment are open; etc.By action resolution based primarily on adjudication of fictional positioning I mean stuff like the following: my PC can draw and fire her gun, because it's ready-to-hand in her handbag; she can leap out the window, because the windows are all open; if she does so she will die (or at least almost certainly be very badly injured) because she's going to fall four floors to the ground.Here are just a handful of all the possible ways a RPG could interpose mechanics between action declaration, fictional position and resolution; any of these would be pushing the RPG away from free kriegsspiel-ish resolution towards something different:* I have to make a check for my PC to successfully pull her gun from her handbag, rather than (eg) fumble it. (Rolemaster tends to have rules like this.) * I have to make a check for my PC to screw up the courage to fire her gun once she has it in hand. (Burning Wheel has Steel rules that can apply in this sort of context.) * I have to make a check to successfully jump out the window. (Wuthering Heights has rules for this: a character who can't make the successful Rage checks suffers too much ennui to kill herself.) * I have to make a roll to determine how much damage the fall does, and compare that to some sort of damage-resistance pool. (D&D notoriously takes this approach to the resolution of falls.) * EtcIn the context of classic D&D, the use of unmediated fictional positioning for resolution is most common in the context of exploration or furniture and architecture: eg the GM has notes on whether the floor is level or sloping, and if I declare that my PC uses a marble or pours water or does something similar to determine whether the floor is level the GM gives me the appropriate answer. (This is most often discussed in OSR-ish debates about how to go about resolving searches for secret doors.) There are many ways that a RPG could take a different approach from this classic D&D one: an example is Burning Wheel, where every action that matters (given PC Beliefs and Instincts and the unfolding trajectory of play) demands a check - so if the slope of the floor really mattered then when I declare my PC getting out a marble or pouring water I would still have to make an appropriate check, probably against a very low obstacle, so that if I fail then the GM is able to narrate some appropriate consequence that will drive the action forward.Needless to say BW is not a very free kriegsspiel-ish game.I'm not 100% sure I follow you here. I don't think free kriegsspiel-ish resolution is going to lead to tense/dramatic chase scenes. The most recent effective chase scene I recall GMing - two groups of PCs in ATVs escaping across-world while trying to avoid orbital bombardment from a starship with a triple beam turret - I resolved using a slight adaptation of Classic Traveller's abstract system for resolving encounters between a small craft and a starship (basically roll to evade, if that fails roll to avoid being blown up, if you survive that then go back to the start). It was surprisingly tense. And it did not depend on anyone having expert knowledge or a realistic sense of how such a chase might resolve.That sort of abstract resolution is pretty much the opposite of resolution based on adjudication of fictional positioning: rather, the fictional positioning - Phew, we've been able to find cover beneath an overhang in a deep valley where the starship won't be able to detect us - is established as an output of the resolution system.I don't think that "GM decides" and "everyone at the table agrees" are easy reconfigurations of one another, as the latter looks to me very much like cooperative storytelling and doesn't seem to have much in common with free kriegsspiel nor with what the FKRers are advocating.Putting that to one side: what is the basis for establishing that something is uncertain? Is it uncertain that my PC can get her gun out of her handbag and shoot it? Rolemaster and Burning Wheel, for different reasons and operationalised in different ways, tend to say No. Apocalypse World says it depends on whether or not you're acting under fire (which might arise not only literally - eg the apartment building is under bombardment - but because you're trying to shoot another PC who already pleaded with you for their life and made a successful Seduce/Manipulate move). Classic Travellers says this is not uncertain - though if a question of who can draw and shoot the quickest arises it has a little DEX-based subsystem to resolve that.Is it uncertain that my PC can hurl herself out the window? Wuthering Heights answers yes, Classic Traveller answers no (it has PC-facing morale rules by they don't apply in this context).My understanding of the FKRers is that they answer this issue of uncertainty by focusing very much on the referee's interpreation of the fictional positioning, though of in causal/mechanistic terms and not in (say) emotional or dramatic terms.I agree with [USER=16814]@Ovinomancer[/USER] that "trust" in the context of FKR is a red herring. Playing BW or AW is a high-trust activity, because the play is going to force you to make hard decisions in front of your friends that will tell them something about you. Prince Valiant or 4e D&D are both far more light-hearted in comparison.The reason I love BW isn't because its systems mean I don't have to trust the GM. It's because its systems produce incredibly dramatic and compelling RPG experiences - and they do that whether I'm playing or GMing.Others can talk about 3E - I don't have enough experience to say very much about it.The "trust" in FKRing appears to be primarily trust in the referee's judgements about the causal processes at work in the fiction. That is the sort of trust that is at work in actual free kriegsspiel - ie the referee is knowledgeable about warfare and hence makes sound decisions about (eg) how the rain creates mud that leads to your artillery getting bogged.If we are talking about RPGing where faithful modelling of the causal processes at work in the fiction is not a high priority - which I think would be the case for a Brideshead Revisited RPG - then I'm not really persuaded that FKR is offering me a great deal. For Brideshead Revisted I'd start with Wuthering Heights, though maybe look at toning it down a little bit.</blockquote>

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