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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8992652" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't find your post shallow. But I do see some of what you're talking about differently.Is chess just maths? Is poker just maths? (I mean, everyone knows all the possible combinations of hands drawn from a deck of 52 cards.)There is a difference between (i) "not knowing the optimal solution" in advance of play - which is true for many game players much of the time - and (ii) "not knowing the optimal solution" at any moment of play - which is true for some game players some of the time - and (iii) having the whole parameter of play be established in an unknown and (at least in principle) unknowable fashion. [USER=7027139]@loverdrive[/USER]'s exaggerated example of this is the GM who establishes the regiment of angry tarrasques just around the corner. But while that is an exaggeration, I've read dozens, probably hundreds, of posts over the years in which RPG play goes awry because of problems in establishing the adversity.This is part of the reason loverdrive is saying that these RPGs (with post-DL D&D as the poster child, but not the only example) are not complete games.In the context of your thread topic, one standard solution that is put forward is for the GM to exercise more control - over consequences, over dice rolls ("fudging"), etc. Which comes back to my Classic Traveller example: to create a playable game out of the rules it gives me for onworld exploration, I have to draw a map that relates the installation the PCs are searching for to the dome. At which point the game play becomes trivial - I've done all the work in drawing the map! The contrast with the evasion from the starship is marked - that outcome wasn't predetermined by decisions I made as GM, and it was exciting game play to play out.As I posted upthread, I believe that there are versions of D&D that are not so vulnerable to loverdrive's criticism: classic D&D dungeon exploration, which uses monsters-by-level tables, plus rigorous mapping and keying, to parameterise the value of a sword; and 4e D&D, which uses a tight correlation between encounter difficulty, XP earned, XP per level, and treasure parcels per level, to parameterise the value of a sword. (There can be wonkiness in classic D&D - we can see that in, say, the 1977 Monster Manual which is a type of record of the GM-vs-player arms race in relation to creatures like ear seekers, rot grubs, the various slimes and oozes, and so on; and there are aspects of 4e D&D where the maths strains or even breaks; but mostly they do the job of providing parametrised game play.)There's a lot of design space between Dread and (say) Rolemaster. And between the Marvel Heroic RP rules for sorcery, and the traditional D&D approach to spells and spell casting. Differences of intricacy, and difference in relation to the fiction.Dungeon World doesn't have a "universal" resolution system like (say) MHRP does, or like 4e D&D does outside of combat (ie skill challenges). But it does have a rule that covers everything: every time a player declares an action for their PC, either it triggers a player-side move (which is resolved via the appropriate mechanical process) or it triggers a GM move (which is an addition to the fiction in accordance with the principles, typically a soft move but under the relevant circumstances a hard move). You can't just drop that DW rule into Classic Traveller onworld exploration and expect it to work, though. I mean, sure, the Traveller referee can make soft moves, but the system doesn't give the players the right player-side moves to respond (eg there is no When you push on towards your destination in your ATV, over unknown country move). So it just becomes the GM talking to themself. Which is not very satisfying game play!Intricacy of elements - like D&D spells, say - won't prevent this issue arising. Say the PCs are trying to escape pursuers. The wizard casts Transmute Rock to Mud on the ground behind them. How much does this slow down the pursuers? Does it help the PCs escape? The problem is that most versions of D&D don't have a player-side When you create an obstacle to prevent pursuit move - so the players declare the casting of the spell, and all the GM can do is decide what to narrate next. Where's the game play? What difference has it made that the players cast the spell. (Contrast, again, classic D&D which does have a When you create an obstacle to prevent pursuit move, although of course it doesn't use the PbtA nomenclature - but it's there in the evasion rules; or 4e D&D, which does have rules for integrating the spell casting into skill challenge resolution.)The fact that rules systems require interpretation of consequences, or decisions about framing (your question about how many checks to get to the top of the cliff) isn't an objection, I don't think. It doesn't distinguish D&D, which has no canonical answer to that question either (in some systems it depends on how high the cliff is, which is a matter of GM decision-making; in AD&D the PHB and DMG contradict one another on this issue). And the correct answer should come from the games principles. Burning Wheel, for instance, addresses this stuff head-on and so does Apocalypse World. Prince Valiant is pretty good about it to. In terms of the thread topic, there is no reason why the GM needs to  be the sole voice that contributes to this, although in a typical RPG they will probably have the last word. In Torchbearer, for instance, it is explicitly stated that the players and GM negotiate over the consequences of a conflict. And consequences are something that I informally discuss with my players all the time.Likewise framing. Should it take one or two checks (or pulls, or . . .) to get to the top of the cliff? Should that be an automatic success? It depends on what's at stake! And players as much as GMs can help establish that.Of course, if the only reason the players want their PCs to get to the top of the cliff is because they're following a GM hook that told them to do so, then it gets trickier, but then a GM who runs that sort of GM-driven game has chosen to take on responsibility for making that sort of decision.For me, this goes back to my remark about why you can't just drop the DW rule into Classic Traveller and expect it to work: Classic Traveller (when it comes to onworld exploration) just doesn't have the right suite of player-side moves.In the context of 5e D&D, the default player-side move is Make an ability check. What is the difficulty? What are the stakes? What are the consequences for failure? All these things are normally under the GM's control, and often are kept secret from the player. If I was playing 5e D&D and wanted to make my play more satisfying, I would look at ways of changing these things. For instance, I might adopt a default DC for  skill checks (say, 10+half-level), with one possible consequence for failure being a stepping up the DC of the follow-on check by 5. I would probably also look to be more open about what's at stake - so a check is only called for when someone wants something out of the situation that the adversity in the situation (be that animate or inanimate force) doesn't want to give them.In general, I don't see the issue as being one of providing more "entertainment", but rather providing more game play.Yes and no: see what I've said above about tarrasque regiments, and about Transmute Rock to Mud.I don't think Classic Traveller is badly designed in general. It has excellent player-facing moves for many core activities - travelling between worlds, buying and selling goods, dealing with bureaucracy, working in vacc suits, calling down fire from orbit, etc. It's one big gap that I've found is onworld exploration.And I don't think there's any particular tension between "crunchy gaminess" and universal resolution. I think MHPR and Torchbearer - in many ways pretty different games - offer both. I don't know it very well, but I think BitD does also.I don't think the features of D&D that [USER=7027139]@loverdrive[/USER] is criticising are there because of a design necessity. I think they're a design choice. I think the overwhelmingly popular way of playing D&D, at least since the mid-80s, is an approach in which the GM is almost all of the game: the setting, the situation, the framing, the consequences. Combat is something of an exception; some dungeon crawling sometimes is too. But I think most RPGers don't want the sort of game play in which the GM is not almost all of the game.</blockquote>

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