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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9615922" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't think the difference is particularly one of abstraction.I mean, what does Torchbearer 2e treat as "abstract", in this context, that D&D doesn't?Suppose that the Alarm spell said, as AoE, "one campsite" or "one resting party"; and suppose it said, as its duration, "until camp is broken" or "until the party finishes its rest"; then some of the difference that the OP points to would be removed, but those changes wouldn't make Alarm more abstract. Just like Aetherial Premonition, it would be a concrete magic alarm conjured up by the spellcaster.Also, to add to what [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER] posted, Alarm does not depend more on fictional position. Whether the assassin attacks from outside or from within 20'; or at 7 hours and 59 minutes or rather at 8 hours and 1 minute; are not matters of fictional position - at least in any game I've heard of. The GM simply stipulates - using whatever process or heuristic they use - what the circumstances are. That stipulation establishes some fictional position for the players (and their PCs); but doesn't depend on any fictional position of the GM's.As I posted upthread, I've done a lot of GMing of situations in which effects analogous to Alarm have been used (namely, Rolemaster's Waiting Illusions). From memory, the trigger distance is 10' about the point of casting (rather than a 20' cube) and the duration is 24 hours (rather than 8 hours), and the triggered effect is always sensory, rather than the "mental ping", but otherwise it is the same.And I can report from that experience that the analogy of board state or a hand of cards (say, Alarm to negate Hunter), is not apt. There is no boardstate that tells the GM the relevant facts about times, distances, NPC capabilities, etc. Can the enemy learn that the PCs are in such-and-such a building? There is no board state that tells us how many of the people on the city street might have noticed the PCs, which building they went into, that they haven't come out, etc. Can the enemy acquire such information within a certain time? Having learned it, can they spot or hear the PCs within the building but without having to come within 10'? That last one might depend on a Perception check - what is the NPC's Perception bonus?There are so many points at which decisions have to be made, that affect the outcome or the range of possible outcomes, that I simply cannot see the comparison to hands of cards.Here, I am with [USER=7044566]@thefutilist[/USER], [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] and [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER]. It's not about "no true Scotsman". It's about the actual reality of what is going on in these gameplay situations. What you are calling a "simulative technology" is simply imagining. And as a GM I can imagine that the assassin is extremely perceptive (say, +80 on Perception checks) or only moderately perceptive (say, +40 on Perception checks). That they are still hungover from their recent revelry (-10 on all checks) or that they are stone-cold sober. That they are impatient (and so take the first shot they can get, even if it suffers a range penalty) or that they are ruthlessly patient (which, on this occasion, counts against them because it means that they sneak up close enough to trigger the warning effect).And of course there are many, many other factors that are relevant to the resolution one way or another that I might imagine.As I posted upthread, when I GMed Rolemaster one way I would disclaim responsibility in respect of these matters was to establish probabilities and roll dice. The natural upshot of doing this enough is  some version of a Camp Event roll modified by various overarching considerations.The alternative is to retain the various elements of GM fiat. Which will, I think, push game play towards a different sort of experience. But not a more simulative one.Here's an example of this - or, what I take to be an example - from my own Torchbearer play:As a GM, I have prepared my "dungeon", which is a series of caves and tombs underneath Megloss's house. The players, within the action economy of the town phase, declare their actions (first) to collect information, from which they infer that there are undead in the dungeon, and (second) to acquire holy water, which is useful against undead, and then (third) use that equipment to good effect when, in the dungeon, they confront some undead.And still on this idea of crosswords + figure skating, I am one of those who does not regard rot grubs, ear seekers etc as inherently degenerate. I'm prepared to allow that, in the context of Lake Geneva play c 1976, they made sense the next step in the escalation of opportunity, threat, consequence etc between those players and those GMs. But what I think doesn't work is when the elements of a particular group's particular experience is presented, without commentary or explanation, as something to be taken up universally. (For instance, the inclusion of rot grubs in the 1977 Monster Manual.) Because what made sense and and even made for good play, in this context where the puzzles were known to work like <this> and the judges were known to  have <this sort of disposition>, becomes orphaned from that context, and risks being largely arbitrary. (Which is the standard complaint about rot grubs and ear seekers.)There are probably contexts in which the Alarm spell, and the GM's decisions about counter-measures, are analogous to the contexts in which ear seekers and rot grubs make sense as principled threats: my first thought is a certain sort of dungeon context, in which distances (for lines of sight, encounters etc) are curtailed and delimited, and in which there is not an open-ended variety of possible intruders. There may be others too.I can confidently report, though, that my Rolemaster experiences were not illustrations of such contexts!</blockquote>

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