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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7742281" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'm not talking about system mastery - I'm just talking about play (which in some systems includes mastery; but not all).Even in a simple game, a player might forget an element of his/her PC. (Eg in the published example of play for MHRP, Shadowcat's player forgets to use an ability that could have helped Cyclops avoid havig his visor ripped off. It's the only example of play I know of which actually has a player noting that s/he misplayed!)In D&D, which isn't simple, I think the chance of the sort of gap I describe opens up quite a bit. In my experience, it's quite common to come across 18 INT magic-users whose choices around spell selection and spell casting are fairly weak, because casual players don't have a good sense of how to choose spells and when to cast them.The illusionism here is fairly light - the real action was the roll, and the choice about where to move is really just adding a bit of colour. It seems to me that the GM could certainly tell the player of the trick as soon as it is pulled without puncturing the mood.Well, what the player believes will depend upon what s/he takes the meaning of the check to be! As I said, I don't think it spoils the GM's trick to reveal that the movement choice was just colour.If the die roll doesn't actually matter, and the choice about movement doesn't matter, then it is illusionism (or participationism if the player knows the GM is a master manipulator).If the players know what's going on and are playing along - most of my CoC experience has been like this - then it is like stage magic. (And The Forge calls it "participationism", not "illusionism", and doesn't regard it as dysfunctional contrary to what you've posted - see eg Ron Edwards <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=29332.0" target="_blank">here</a>.)If the players in fact believe that their checks and action declarations matter and so the GM is not just "weaving his/her magic" but actually lying, then I think it is dysfunctionality waiting to happen. Stage magicians don't have to lie (contrast Uri Geller); movie makers don't have to lie (contrast people who fake films and photos of UFOs and fairies); GMs who want to run games like this shouldn't need to lie either, should they?</blockquote>

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