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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6243927" data-attributes="member: 42582">Yes, if the session had been run as a predetermined, non-indie style "storytelling" episode then those who don't enjoy such play wouldn't have enjoyed it.So what you say is true, but I don't see who disagrees with it, so I don't feel the force of the "yet".Can you not see that there is a huge difference between the secret backstory of the chamberlain as gebbeth, which makes my Diplomacy check an autofail, and the chamberlain as gebbeth being narrated to explain, within the fiction, and as a response to the mechanical resolution of my Diplomacy check, why my attempt at diplomacy failed. This is an intended feature of fortune in the middle resolution - it preserves player protagonism and the player's conception of his/her PC as competent. (In 4e there tends to be only this element, because 4e has no "choose to fail for advantage" mechanic - it really is about superheroic characters. More typical "indie" games include options to fail in return for gaining a metagame token from the GM (FATE, Marvel Heroic RP, Burning Wheel all have this), which means that failure is possible but is under the player's control. And it is always open to narrate a failed roll as failure if that suit's the group's current purposes.)<a href="http://" target="_blank">Here</a> is Ron Edwards's description of how FitM serves this purpose:It preserves the desired image of player-characters specific to the moment. Given a failed roll, they don't have to look like incompetent goofs; conversely, if you want your guy to suffer the effects of cruel fate, or just not be good enough, you can do that too.13th Age, p 42, describes the same principle this way:A simple but powerful improvement you can make to your game is to redefine failure as “things go wrong” instead of “the PC isn’t good enough.” Ron Edwards, Luke Crane, and other indie RPG designers have championed this idea, and they’re exactly right. You can call it “fail forward” or “no whiffing.”No doubt you could adjudicate things this way if you wanted to - disregarding the players' intents in the narration of their successes. What does that prove about other playstyles, though?No, you also disregarded the players' intentions in determining the consequences of their successful checks.I don't follow this either. What does it show us about Gandalf's motives and morality in freeing Theoden from Saruman that, had Gandalf been a villain, he would have been acting villainously?Via [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION]'s play, as he descibes in his post.Which takes us back to the contrast between "indie" and "storyteller" play: in indie play there is no predetermined conception of how things might unfold and be resolved.That only one NPC can detect his magic, and that his Arcana skill bonus is high, does not entail that "Quinn is well nigh unstoppable by the resources most challenges can be expected to bring to bear against him in his chosen field." Because most challenges that one can expect to bear upon him will involve that NPC! (As they did on this ocassion. Which got Quinn into trouble!)Yet Quinn did not dominate the scene, nor solve it singlehandedly with his magic. That is the point of skill challenge-style mechanics.Perhaps then you discounted "and then adjduciating and evolving it as it unfolds in a way that maintains the pressure on those same points and invites the playes to thereby push towards resolution of the thematic elements built into their PCs".The focus returns to the king in post 88, where Thurgon heads off to save the king while sending Quinn and avenger to track down the Court Mage. The earlier stuff is GM colour in response to my action at post 60.That's the whole point: replacing GM force with mechanical structures that the players can leverage by deploying their resources (in this case, skill checks).</blockquote>

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