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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Professor Phobos" data-source="post: 4033431" data-attributes="member: 18883">And if I can't get the ability I want from those rules? What then?The high-level knight is only a high-level knight when there's high-level knighting to do. Otherwise, off-screen he's just some dude on a horse. Likewise, if a player retires his PC and later says that he's killed in a pointless bar fight, despite actually being capable of single-handedly wiping out whole kingdoms, that's fine too. Oooh, ooh, what about when the rules cover a situation, but we don't want to apply them because it would be extremely tedious?Take the following. Team Good (the PCs) and Team Evil (the enemy) are both going up a mountain to find the Temple of the Plot Device. It's a tall mountain. According to the Climb skill rules, they're only for an individual wall, or section of mountain, or cliffside. But instead of making six hundred and forty one climb checks for each side...DM (me): "You all have Climb?"PCs: "Yeah. Except for Dave."DM (me): "Whoever's got it highest roll it, with the others Aiding him, and Dave giving a penatly of, oh, say -3, 'cause you got to help him climb. If you beat Team Evil, you get there first. If you don't, you get their after they do."No falling off the mountain, because we don't care. No tedious mountain climbing, because all anyone wants to do is go fight team evil. All that matters is whether they get there first, and so can set up an ambush, or get there second, and walk into an ambush. But this breaks the rules for the Climb skill, doesn't it?And yes, before you start yammering about how the players have no input here, if they had some other idea, I'd certainly listen and probably say yes. (Like, "Can we try to intercept Team Evil before the Temple? or, "Can we trigger an avalanche..." or "Can we bribe this nearby dragon to just fly us up..." and so on.)(emphasis mine) And if I want to handle it some other way? Besides, you already established that changing the price of a magic item is a heavy-handed rules change that implies an abusive GM castrating his players, so clearly your threshold for "circumstances not in the rules" is pretty low.The rules are one way you have an affect on the game world, but not the only way. But keep in mind, just as I expedite a particular narrative effect, so can the players. And, again, the goal is an emergent narrative- you don't have the story prepared ahead of times, it grows from play in a mutual, cooperative fashion between DM and players.This doesn't make the player impotent. Roleplaying games are not zero sum, they are collaborative. It makes the players more potent, because they're range of power over the setting is not found just in the rules, but with some discussion with the GM, can extend to the game world itself.That's ridiculous. There is a huge in-between area. There is no reason to think your character cannot affect the world if NPC knights can break their necks.The rules don't apply. He's off-screen. He's an NPC. He's not facing down the dragon, he's just some dude on a horse. The rules are a provisionally applied abstraction, designed for certain circumstances. NPCs don't follow the rules when the PCs aren't around- the whole world operates exactly how the DM imagines it does...until the PCs change things. The rules are there for the players, not the DM.What are you even talking about with this "game over" business?Take another example. The PCs at some point in the past fought alongside Archbishop Preacher McGodly, the 15th level Fist of the Sun God or somesuch. He's the high priest of a city the PCs have left. Later, they learn via messanger that the archbishop has died under scandalous circumstances- a prostitute stabbed him whilst he secretly visited a brothel!But wait! He's 15th level, isn't he? He can't die from a stab wound! Yes, yes he can. He can die from the flu. He can get run over by a cart crossing the street. He's only a 15th level Cleric when there is 15th level Clericing to do.They return to the city. The players might expect it to have been dopplegangers or some 15th level threat- but no, it is all mundane. Just an old man indulging his vice and paying the consequences. Maybe I'm setting up a fall from grace themed story, or I expect the PCs to take over the church in the wake of the scandal, or are granted in the Archbishop's will some terrible knowledge of a dire threat that he wanted them to face if he were unable. Whatever.Unless, of course, you go find that same master and get the same training...Or maybe the master is long dead. Too bad! The world might be full of those little exceptions. Some might be available to the PCs, some not. I can attest from personal experience- I am loose with rules. I handwave. I fiat. I fudge. I ignore. I break. I bend. I modify. And yet my players are powerful actors within the setting and the driving force behind the narrative. And we still get good use out of the rules very regularly.You known what? You are being disingenous. This is not honest discussion. I might as well ask you, "OH yeah? Well if the rules are so important, why even have a GM?"It's ridiculous.EDIT: Also note that I can use or not use the rules for different reasons. For storytelling purposes, I might run a scene as a rules-less roleplaying bit between players and NPCs, adjudicating NPC reactions based on how I think they would react.At some other time, because I want an element of gamist challenge, I might do a full on combat scene with all the rules at work. Or, maybe I run the combat as a narrative excercise, and the conversation with all the rules. Different tools for different purposes.</blockquote>

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