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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4036065" data-attributes="member: 4937">I'm not sure what you mean by 'non-rule situations'. In general though, I'm talking about a much broader view than that.Let me give an example.&nbsp; The core rules carry no suggestions for the likelihood of a pregnancy when a PC has 'intimate relations' with a healthy member of the opposite gender.&nbsp; If this occurs once, the DM (and the players) might happily accept a DM fiat ruling because a one time event isn't necessarily central to gameplay.&nbsp; On the other hand, if it is important to game play, either because the event is reoccuring or potentially life changing for a character, most DM's and most players will eventually become unhappy with the situation being resolved by DM fiat alone, in much the same way and for the same reasons that most DM's and most players would become unhappy with combat being resolved by DM fiat alone.So, the DM will probably invent some ad hoc method of dealing with the situation.&nbsp; He may throw a d6 and if it comes up '1', decide that a pregnancy occurs (I did this the first time it happened in one of my games), or he might (more modern systematic rules) have the female make a CON check versus DC 10 and if it succeeds then pregnancy occurs (my as yet untested but current house rule).&nbsp; Or if the DM may be less prone to rulessmithing may flip a coin or decide (even unconsciously) that every second act leads to pregnancy.&nbsp; Whatever the DM decides to do though, the tendancy will be for that DM to resolve the situation using the same rule in the future.&nbsp; At that point, the rule is no longer ad hoc and is every bit as much a part of the rules of the game as the combat rules, even if the rule exists nowhere except in the DMs mind.&nbsp; And at that point, the ad hoc rule becomes part of that universe's physics, effectively describing how easily pregnanacy occurs even if the DM never actually applies it to offstage events involving NPCs.&nbsp; The PC's have a reasonable expectation that the rule that applies to them is universal and will continue to apply whenever it is important to resolve something.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 4036065, member: 4937"] I'm not sure what you mean by 'non-rule situations'. In general though, I'm talking about a much broader view than that. Let me give an example. The core rules carry no suggestions for the likelihood of a pregnancy when a PC has 'intimate relations' with a healthy member of the opposite gender. If this occurs once, the DM (and the players) might happily accept a DM fiat ruling because a one time event isn't necessarily central to gameplay. On the other hand, if it is important to game play, either because the event is reoccuring or potentially life changing for a character, most DM's and most players will eventually become unhappy with the situation being resolved by DM fiat alone, in much the same way and for the same reasons that most DM's and most players would become unhappy with combat being resolved by DM fiat alone. So, the DM will probably invent some ad hoc method of dealing with the situation. He may throw a d6 and if it comes up '1', decide that a pregnancy occurs (I did this the first time it happened in one of my games), or he might (more modern systematic rules) have the female make a CON check versus DC 10 and if it succeeds then pregnancy occurs (my as yet untested but current house rule). Or if the DM may be less prone to rulessmithing may flip a coin or decide (even unconsciously) that every second act leads to pregnancy. Whatever the DM decides to do though, the tendancy will be for that DM to resolve the situation using the same rule in the future. At that point, the rule is no longer ad hoc and is every bit as much a part of the rules of the game as the combat rules, even if the rule exists nowhere except in the DMs mind. And at that point, the ad hoc rule becomes part of that universe's physics, effectively describing how easily pregnanacy occurs even if the DM never actually applies it to offstage events involving NPCs. The PC's have a reasonable expectation that the rule that applies to them is universal and will continue to apply whenever it is important to resolve something. [/QUOTE]

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