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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6189346" data-attributes="member: 6696971">What pemerton is referring to is the legitimacy of the engagement of the resolution mechanics as arbiter of "what happens in the fiction" when a conflict manifests versus GM fiat/force as arbiter.  "Rocks fall.  You die." is problematic for you (and me) because its either framed (arbitrarily, without context/foreshadowing) as an unwinnable challenge and engages the resolution mechanics with impossible odds of success...or it doesn't engage the resolution mechanics at all.  GM fiat/force as arbiter.  Contrast that to a healthy dose of foreshadowing/context and functional mechanical resolution of the hazard that allows PCs to deploy strategic countermeasures and, failing that turning out, engages the resolution mechanics to determine how the PC build choices (defenses/HPs/suite of relevant actions) interfaces with the attack/damage/status effect thresholds of the hazard.Every encounter, from social to combat, can be mapped out in the same way as the infamous "rocks fall, you die" "encounter."  Suzy the player has great charisma, social skills, understanding of the human condition, and is extroverted.  Her Orc Fighter, Bracka, has an 8 Charisma with no social skills to speak of.  Andy the player is the inverse of Suzy; uncharismatic, socially awkward, aloof, introverted.  His suave Half-elf Bard Don Juan has an 18 Charisma and a full suite of social skills/powers etc.  While Andy is a quiet wallflower, Suzy regularly dominates scenes of social conflict because the GM is moved by her (the player) adept roleplaying and re-framing of the situation.  He either engages the resolution mechanics with such considerable looseness/lack of stringency that Suzy cannot lose or he doesn't engage them at all because "rollplaying, not roleplaying."  In the same way that GM fiat forces "death" upon your character in the "rocks fall, you die" exploration scenario (and your character's fictional positioning is now "dead"), the fictional positioning in the social scenario above represents Suzy's Orc as "Face of the A-Team" and Andy's half-elf as "the mousey girl in the corner at prom", because conflict arbitration by way of GM ruling (putting the onus on "roleplaying not rollplaying") overrides/circumvents the action resolution mechanics (which interface with PC build choices).In essence, all the "power cosmic" in the world doesn't matter if using various Divinations, "Wish", etc means that your GM is obliged to aggressively work to re-frame (interpret and evolve the fictional positioning) your attempts to re-frame (casted spell/s) his framed scenario (whatever the conflict might be) in a manner that, in part or wholly, thwarts your plan...in the name of creating/forcing functional story and equitable table spotlight amongst players (the "balance is in the hands of the GM" position).</blockquote>

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