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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6194473" data-attributes="member: 42582">However it is that you handle the pacing of rests in 3E/PF, it is not prescribed by the rules. That is a marked contrast with (for instance) 13th Age.However you decide that monster A attacks PC B, that is not prescribed by the rules either.Please quote me some rules text on this.The books make it clear that the GM is in charge of scene-framing. Where do they say that the GM gets to choose who the antagonists who oppose the PCs will be - ie that the GM gets to set the overarching story parameters for the campaign? Many published adventures make this assumption. If the 3E rulebooks actually assert it, that would be something distinctive about them - because the 1st ed AD&D rulebooks certainly don't.No. First, the players get to decide where their PCs go, and hence who they meet. Second, the players get to decide what their PCs do when they meet those people.The antagonists are the opposition to the PCs. In many games, including 1st ed AD&D games, the players get to choose who their PCs oppose and with whom they seek alliance - and there are reaction, loyalty and morale rules (imperfect as they are) for resolving those social encounters.Even the claim that the GM is in charge of everyone is contentious. For instance, in every game I've ever played the players got to decide basic facts about their PCs' family and childhood, provided that it fit within basic genre and reasonableness parameters. And nothing in any rulebook that I'm familiar with contradicts this (perhaps the 3E or 3.5 DMG says that the GM gets to specify the family background of the PCs?).If people have certain practices in their own play which are not universal, and not themselves prescribed by the rulebooks, and then just assume that everyone else who is following those books is also following all those other practices, communication breakdowns will be the result.If, in fact, 3E D&D or PF only works when certain practices not set out in the rulebooks are adhered to, it might even be a good thing if the game designers wrote down those additional requirements.Not everyone runs the game this way. It is not "natural" to all players and all tables. And the rulebooks - at least the ones I'm familiar with - don't prescribe it.My point is that there is more to adjudication than simply "skilled GMing" - skilful adjudication of Call of Cthulhu, for instance, is a very different thing from skilful adjudication of White Plume Mountain; some rulebooks even tell the players and GM what sort of adjudication is required to make the game play as advertised.Where in any D&D rulebook is this stated as a goal of adjudication - either by reference to these three elements (I don't myself follow the distinction between (1) and (2), for instance), or by reference to the meshing of them into a "pleasant whole". That would be something else that is not prescribed by the rulebook. Some GMs, and some groups, have different goals in mind with adjudication. In my case, for instance, my number one goal in adjudication is maintaining the pressure on the players via their PCs while respecting the outcome of the dice.Marvel Heroic RP allows meaningful choices yet does not reward system mastery. Classic D&D allows meaningful choices - a module like White Plume Mountain is full of them - without rewarding or requiring system master. In both cases - despite very different resolution systems - the meaningfulness of the choice resides not in the mechanics but in the fiction. Which (in my view) is the proper place for meaningfulness in an RPG (as opposed to, say, a boardgame).</blockquote>

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