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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8999737" data-attributes="member: 42582">The thing is, it's not clear to me what RPG doesn't exemplify this approach. What RPG disputes that anything is possible to attempt?But reference to "rulings over rules" often reminds me of a story I read from Luke Crane (on some now-deleted forum I think) about his foray into Moldvay Basic. The player of a fighter declared that their PC hid from some Hobgoblins (or a spider - some monster, anyway); and Luke resolved that as a "roll under DEX" check.It was only later that he realised that he'd given the fighter a better chance of hiding than the thief class's Hide in Shadows chance.Generalising from that example, the issue with "rulings over rules" is when it collides with other elements of the resolution system, especially those that players have paid for with build resources. This is an area why I personally find D&D can be quite tricky, because there are so many somewhat arbitrary build elements (like Hide in Shadows as a thief class ability; or in 5e D&D the cleric's divine intervention ability as an obvious example).On the other hand, this is not an issue that I've had in Cthulhu Dark, because it relies on very simple descriptor-based rules for putting together a dice pool.That's not to say that Cthulhu Dark is better than (or worse than) D&D. But it certainly does "rulings not rules" pretty well!</blockquote>