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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LostSoul" data-source="post: 5560160" data-attributes="member: 386">I'm glad you started this, it's something I'm interested in!  I'm not sure how much I can add, but let's give it a shot. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />1. Fictional Positioning.(For those who care about the origins of the term, I think it was first outlined <a href="http://bankuei.wordpress.com/2008/03/08/fictional-positioning-101/" target="_blank">here.</a>)When talking about action resolution, including skill challenges, combat actions, and simple skill checks, I think the key is that the system does not require any reference to your character's fictional position.  We don't need to know the fictional details of your character's action to proceed with resolution; the game will work even if that is ignored.  Here are some simple examples:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Simple skill check: "I Stealth past the guard."  Per the game's rules, we compare the result of your Stealth check to the guard's Passive Perception.  This is the least egregious example; we all have an idea of what the character is doing.  However, how your character uses Stealth may be an issue.  Imagine that the next room - past the guard - is well lit, with other guards/characters there, no possibility of Stealth.  Now imagine two different uses of Stealth: Moving slowly through the shadows with your cloak drawn up around yourself, all creepy and shifty in the classic thief style, and moving up to the guard, then walking normally once he turns his head.  The method you use can feed into the next situation.  But if you simply state "I use Stealth" - which is all the system requires - we don't know how you enter the next room.  The reaction of the guards in the next room should be different based on how you used Stealth.  You can stop and ask at this point once the new situation has been revealed, but this can be troublesome; if either player does it (DM or Player), there are conflicts of interest.  The DM can't fairly make the call (does he maintain the challenge or allow the PC to get by? both can be railroading), and the Player is forced to set his own opposition. A good DM will already know what's in the next room and make sure he asks how you use Stealth, because he knows that fictional position is going to have an effect on the game's economy.  My view is that good rules will force DMs to be "good".  If the skill check resolution rules are written in a way that requires that we know the character's fictional position before action resolution is possible, we don't find ourselves in this situation as often.  "Good" DMing practices are enforced by the system. My hack tries to get around this by removing verbs from the skill list and decoupling stats from skills.  You have to describe actions in order to apply bonuses, either from a stat or your skill.  It's not perfect and there are times we've forgotten to describe an action ("I sneak past the guard using Guild Trained Thief"), but since those skills are described in fictional terms they give us something to base decisions on, which is better than nothing! </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Combat actions: This has been covered many times by many different people.  "How do you knock a snake prone?" has been the most recent one.  I think the issue is the same as above: the system works fine if you don't give fictional positioning any considerations.  (See my next post for a controversial statement about 4E.)  In other words, the game doesn't care about how you knock that snake prone, just that you apply the Prone condition to the character. In my experience this leads to players focusing on their character sheets and the powers they have available instead of focusing on the game world and what their characters (and foes!) are actually doing.  It's a strange problem, because it comes from the fact that 4E combat is so tactically interesting and deep without any fictional positioning! It's not that the system can't handle it; there's no reason you can't make a Cha-attack action that causes Psychic damage by intimidating an opponent or calling for their surrender.  (The game's economy is simple: Standard Action, Cha vs. Will, +2 if trained in Intimidate, Hit: medium normal damage expression of your level psychic damage; if the target drops to 0 HP he surrenders.)  It's my view that this doesn't happen often because the game system doesn't require attention to the fictional details; characters and situations are complex enough that it's difficult for players to keep both their powers/abilities and the fictional positions in their mind at the same time. I tried to change this in my hack by adding Triggers to martial encounter powers, decoupling stats from attack rolls, and adding all sorts of modifiers to attacks and defences based on the action taken.  Again, it's not perfect, but players who take the time to focus on the fictional situation usually end up much more likely to succeed than players who don't.  (I've seen 2nd level characters engage with the fiction and gain high attack roll modifiers than 6th level characters who did not.)  This is okay in my hack since it's a player challenge-based game. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Skill Challenges: These have the same issue as simple one-off skill checks, but there's another wrinkle: how does each action build up to success or failure in the skill challenge as a whole? Five characters can make five totally unrelated skill checks and those unrelated checks can add up to success. Let's say we want to talk to the Duke.  The PCs take all sorts of different actions, none of which are really related.  "I greet the Duke,", "I comment on his family's storied History", "I look buff and capable", etc.  All of these are initial actions that should prompt a necessary further action along the same lines, but suddenly we have success on the challenge as a whole. A good DM can get around this but it's a lot of work for the DM that isn't helped out by the system. And again, skill checks can be made without consulting the fictional situation: "I use Diplomacy", "I use Athletics", "I use History", etc.; this doesn't make sense, but the system doesn't require it to, and this was made all the worse by the write-ups of skill challenges with their "required skills" or whatever.</li> </ul>Now on to the controversial statement...</blockquote>

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