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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6398763" data-attributes="member: 42582">With respect to the LotR, which one are you saying is "down to earth" and which one "amazing"?From pp 446-7 of my one-volume edition:"Where sight fails the earth may bring us rumour," said Aragorn. "The land must groan under their hated feet." He stretched himself upon the ground with his ear pressed against the turf. . . . At last he rose, and now his friends could see his face: it was pale and drawn, and his look was troubled. "The rumour of the earth is dim and confused," he said. "Nothing walks upon if for many miles about us. Faint and far are the feet of our enemies. But loud are the hoofs of the horses. . . . [T]hey are drawing ever further from us, riding northward. I wonder what is happening in this land!"Also on pp 270-71:If a man must needs walk in sight of the Black Gate, or tread the deadly flowers of Morgul Vale, then perils he will have. I, too, despaired at last, and I began my homeward journey. And then, by fortune, I came suddenly on what I sought: the maks of soft feet beside a muddy pool. But now the trail was fresh and swift . . . Along the skirts of the Dead Marshes I followed it, and then I had him.Aragorn seems like he could track someone across cobblestones!There is also a broader issue here, similar to one that  [MENTION=2011]KarinsDad[/MENTION],  [MENTION=40166]prosfilaes[/MENTION] and I are discussing. Aragorn notes that "by fortune" he came upon Gollum's trail. In a novel, it is the author who gets to dictate strokes of fortune. What about in an RPG? I think KarinsDad is expressing a view where it is the GM who gets to decide whether or not the player benefits from fortune (eg the GM decides, in advance of any trackig roll, whether or not a neckerchief has been dropped). The "say yes or roll the dice" approach allows the player to exercise control over such fortune, in part by rolling the dice. So part of building up your PCs tracking skill is making it more likely that, when you try and track, you will have the fortune to come upon clear signs of passage.As I've said, a good DMG would discuss the various approaches and the different sorts of affects that they have on gameplay, and how the rules of the game can be deployed in these various ways.</blockquote>

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