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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8267160" data-attributes="member: 82106">Yeah, I don't know that you would find this to be such an extreme concern. I mean, it is going to vary amongst games, since some GMs/tables might practice a more extreme type of flexibility there. Still, as I said in my last post, no game can really exist where the logic of the story is not 'cognizable' to the participants. Some genre are closer to leaning on realism than others, but all of them have some sort of reliance on things that the participants know and agree on in order for play to function.Now, a lot of the goal of narratively focused play, such as the kind of flexible scene-framing techniques that some of us use, with 'low myth' setting, is to focus on what the players are interested in doing. So, if they want to play tactical/strategic wargame, then the use of mechanics and situations should be catering to that. However it is going to be MORE LIKE a 'war story' than a 'war game' in some sense.So, if the PCs kite an ogre into some goblins, then what happens? That depends! It could be that this is an end result of some great success by the players, they got good rolls, they expended their resources and took risks to make this happen, and payoff is the goblins gank the ogre, and maybe a bunch of the goblins are also offed in the process. I DON'T NEED MECHANICS to deal with this. In fact I never ever roll dice for NPCs. I just don't see the point. In this case the PCs are an interested party, they will probably see what happens and it will be described in a way that comports with the previous fiction, so they won't think "that makes no sense." Other outcomes are also possible of course, depending on narrative direction and dramatic need.Maybe the ogre and the goblins look at each other and decide they would both rather eat adventurer tonight! Oops, out of the frying pan and into the fire! This is the sort of 'move' that Dungeon World GM might make (hard or soft depending on the immediacy of the threat and how it is surfaced). Again, this should be something that is at least potentially predictable, or maybe just a risk the PCs feel is worth taking. Maybe really smart PCs even hedged their bets somehow and have a response (IE they all pull out the potions of Giant Strength they bought just in case. Costly, but they can still win). Maybe the Ogre wins and laughs and tells the PCs he's had enough and heads back into the mountains with a sack full of goblin coins and a belly full of roast goblin, never to be seen again. Presumably there is ALWAYS a range of possibilities out there in any game. Nothing in life is ever certain. Adventure is a specifically uncertain way to live...In other words, I wouldn't suddenly change mechanics in a way that doesn't make sense according to the shared understanding of the fiction, and the sensibilities of the participants. I don't think you need some sort of hard-coded objective mechanical model of everything in the world to do that. In fact, I agree with the notion that such a model CAN and often DOES get in the way as much as it helps!</blockquote>

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