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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4038341" data-attributes="member: 42582">I have acknowledged that expressly in every post in which I have replied to you. I'm very happy to acknowledge it again. As I've said several times, I do not think that this is really what is at stake in this discussion. That is, I hope we can get more profit out of this discussion than simply telling one another how we like to play. I think we could profitably analyse those playstyles, and some of their implications.As just noted, I have never remotely suggested either of these things. I have simply suggested that by calling those who run the game differently "cheaters", "rule-breakers", "ignorers of rules", "lazy", "doers of things merely for convenience", etc, you are (i) describing their playstyle in a pejorative fashion; and (ii) not actually addressing the respect in which their playstyle differs from your preferred playstyle.See, here you (i) mischaracterise the playstyle I am talking about by saying it is about "making up most of the rules", and (ii) further mischaracterise it by suggesting that it distributes narrative power among the players in a way that is unfair or unequal.IMO, that doesn't really help the discussion proceed.My own feeling is that greater clarity can be achieved by describing alternative approaches to play in neutral ways that capture their essence. Thus, I don't describe your playstyle as pedantic or pointless (which a narrativist might experience it as), but as one in which the character build and action resolution mechanics are true descriptions of the entire gameworld. This may be a mouthful, but it I think it does get to the essence.Yes. That is quite different from saying that it is cheating. And it acknowledges that there is a cogent approach to play that you do not enjoy. Again, I don't doubt your non-enjoyment. But I think this discussion can make more progress once everyone recognises the cogency (for their practitioners) of multiple playstyles.I hope you accept that I really am not questioning your sincerity. It's just that I think this thread has raised interesting issues, but (IMO) getting to them requires putting personal preferences to one side, at least when it comes to framing (as opposed to expressing preferences for) the different playstyled.Turning, now, to those issues. First, the sense of "cheating" or "ignoring the rules":With respect, that analogy is utterly inapt. In what way does the rules model I've put forward treat one player differently from another? Of course it treats the GM differently - in most standard implementations, the GM will have more narrative control over non-PC game elements than the players do - but that is pretty mainstream for an RPG. It is certainly true of D&D.Under your approach (as I interpret it from your posts), for example, no player is permitted to choose the result of a dice roll, whereas when the GM resolves matters between NPCs s/he is allowed to choose those results (eg to declare without rolling that the apprentice succeeded on a spellcraft roll to decipher the scroll, then failed on the roll to avoid having it backfire).But I assume you don't regard yourself as open to the Scrabble-vowel objection - and nor should you. It is equally inapplicable to the rules model I put forward in my post.Thus, I can understand that play under my model would break your sense of immersion. But I can't understand - at least via the Scrabble example - how it would feel like cheating.Here is one way I can make sense of the "cheating" idea: Suppose part of the point (challenge?) of the game - or, perhaps, the whole point - is to get everything in the gameworld to come out via the action resolution mechanics. So for a GM or player to simply specify some feature of the gameworld without engaging those mechanics would be to obtain, by simple stipulation, what is in fact meant to be achieved by applying those mechanics. A bit like trying to win at solitaire simply by setting out all the cards in a winning position, rather than playing it through.Does this capture something like your thought?If it does, I wonder about a couple of things: how does it fit with the GM's right to decide what the dice say in certain cases (as per above examples)? and how does it fit with the player's right to specify sex, hair colour, eye colour etc of his or her PC? If stipulation is permissible in respect of these matters, why not in other cases? This last question is not meant to be rhetorical, but to try to identify the criteria on which you are drawing what is, for your preferred playstyle, a crucial distinction.Agreed. The problem with RM (and other games for which I'm using RM as a placeholder or metaphor), however, is that because the (non-rhetorical) question asked above is never properly answered, no proper (purpose-governed) restriction is put on the growth of the rules. And, of course, once we restrict the scope of the mechanics for some purpose, we seem to have opened the door to the idea of metagame constraints on rules and their scope. And then you and I are apperently just drawing the line in different places.Maybe not - it may well run deeper. Regardless of that, I think that the threat of pointless rules bloat really is one of the "risks to fun" that confronts your playstyle. (Just as breaking immersion is one of the "risks to fun" that confonts the narrativist playstyle.)Turning, now, to a different issue, namely, whether or not D&D contemplates the sort of playstyle I am trying to articulate, in which the action resolution and character build mechanics are not the physics of the gameworld:I'll note the presence of the word "normally". It does run your way, but not entirely your way.That can't be meant literally, but perhaps only in the context of combat with the PCs. Otherwise, I could never do what you and others have suggested, and set up plots which do fit within the parameters of the action-resolution mechanics, because actually rolling the dice may not give the right result (see apprentice scroll reading example above).For the same reason, that can't be meant literally. Note also that it refers to a default, not a requirement, and it notes the presuppositions on which the default holds, and which obviously some posters on this thread do not share.I don't have my book in front of me, but from memory that is referring to NPCs fighting alongside PCs (eg Cohorts) and is not a more general statement about advancement (thus, I do not think there is a general presumption in the game that all high-level tower-dwelling wizards were once dungeon-delvers).That strikes me as orthogonal to the issue, unless you are saying it implies that this is the only difference. I agree that 3rd Ed D&D has a default assumption that NPCs and monsters follow the same character build mechanics as PCs. Earlier editions did not, though, and 4e is expressly abandoning this particular feature of 3rd ed.I don't see how the suggestion arises myself, at least if by "rules" you mean "action resolution mechanics" (with respect to 3rd Ed, I don't dispute the point in relation to character build mechanics).I think that overall you're right that there is a suggested default position of mechanics = physics, but for the reasons I've given I think it can't be meant quite as literally as it is stated, and once we allow for that, plus for some of the qualifying language (like "normally" and "you might not think..."), then I don't feel that it dictates your approach to play. And from everything I've seen about 4e, I think that the designers have realised that D&D doesn't have to be played you way (though obviously it can be), and are setting out the rules with that thought more clearly in mind.</blockquote>

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