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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4158012" data-attributes="member: 42582">This is not really true. Given that, in the typical purist-for-system RPG (RM, RQ, GURPS) it is the GM who actually has overriding authority to narrate the world, the choices the players can make are quite circumscribed by what the GM establishes as the parameters for those choices.Those rule systems do allow players to estimate the likely success of various actions once the GM's narration has been clearly undertaken. Given the importance of die rolls in such systems, it is important to note that the players can't choose for their PCs to achieve things, only for them to try things. This is a significant limitation on choice. It is what tends to give those games a rather gritty feel.I think you mean "the players should be able to decide what actions their PCs attempt".The availability of these options has nothing to do with whether or not the rules are the physics of the gameworld. In fact they depend on such things as the scope of the game's action resolution system. In most versions of D&D negotation is actually primarily an example of GM's fiat. It is more typical for more narrativist games (eg The Dying Earth), in which the rules are not the physics of the gameworld, to have adequate action resolution mechanics for negotiations.Are you aware of the actual realworld existence of RPGs that have non-simulationist character build and action resolution mechanics? To mention The Dying Earth again, it has very detailed rules for resolving a wide range of PC actions. Those rules do not model the physics of the gameworld. Rather, they distribute narrative control across the various players of the game (including the GM).In short: it is possible to have rules which the players can rely upon in playing the game, without those rules having to be the physics of the gameworld.You seem to be saying that players have more choice when the GM has the sole authority for determining the consequences of their actions. That is not quite contradictory, but it's far from obviously true.This is not necessarily so. The rules can tell the players what choices are permitted without those rules being the physics of the gameworld. The rules, for example, may tell players what the limits are of their narrative control - perhaps no more than 1 friendly NPC to be introduced by the player per session. Such a rules would have no implications for the natural laws that govern demography of the gameworld.Most FiTM action resolution systems require the player to narrate the action so as to explain the outcome. Thus, winning a conflict would not cause things to happen for no ingame reason. The player's narration would explain what the reason is.A general question to all those who say that rules must be the physics of the gameworld: do you actually deny the existence of RPGs (eg The Dying Earth, Prince Valiant, HeroWars, etc) which do have action resolution mechanics, but in which those mechanics are not the physics of the gameworld? Or do you think that the people who play those games don't understand what they are really doing when the play them?</blockquote>

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