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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9369974" data-attributes="member: 42582">[USER=6801228]@Chaosmancer[/USER] You are  largely repeating yourself. You assert that if a game rules says that a certain magical effect ends at a certain specified point in the turn sequence (eg at the end of the victim's next turn), then in the fiction the reason that it ends cannot be something external to both caster and victim. Similarly, you have asserted that if a game rule establishes that the fiction is to be determined, or shaped, by a randomisation process then in the fiction, the event that is determined in that fashion must itself be a random event. You've provided no argument for these assertions, and I know from experience that they are false.Furthermore, you claim to have played a RPG - Fate - that can only work if these assertions you are making is false - Fate depends upon divorcing the means at the table whereby the fiction is established and the process in the fiction whereby events are caused to occur. This therefore means either (i) you must have had an unsatisfactory experience when playing Fate, or (ii) you are capable of departing from your assertions in some contexts. I am pointing out that one can depart from them in D&D, and that the idea of doing so goes back 45 years to Gygax's account of saving throws and hit points in his DMG.You also assert that if an event is providential in the fiction, then it must be pre-scripted at the table. This assertion is false too. I know it to be false both at a theoretical/conceptual level (because the best accounts of how RPGs work contradict your assertion), and empirically (because RPGs have had mechanical elements that contradict it going back to random encounters and random reaction rolls in the earliest games; and because I personally have had play experiences that contradict it).You further assert that it must be the GM who decides the will of the gods, what morality requires, etc. Again, on argument is provided. My RPGing experience contradicts that. I've even given an example: when Thurgon prayed, and the Faith test was successful, and the Lord of Battle answered his prayer, the GM was not the one who decided the will of the gods. I suggested what it might be (expressing my character's hope and pious conviction), and the dice rolls confirmed my suggestion. And this also goes back to your other assertions: perhaps it was fore-ordained, from the beginning of time, that the Lord of Battles would restore Xanthippe's resolve and vigour at just that time in response to Thurgon's prayer. This might even be the reason why the Lord of Battles permitted the Iron Tower to come into the strife that it has - perhaps that was leading to this moment!Now I don't know one way or the other, because the fiction has not yet been written. And you don't know either, and - given that you are not at my table - you cannot know until it is decided at my table, and I then let you know.You can continue to assert that we are lying, deluded etc. But you are are wrong.Perhaps you should try playing Fate again, and actually pay attention to how the shared fiction is established in the play of that game.</blockquote>

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