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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 9002731" data-attributes="member: 5142">First, your play preferences are valid, and there is nothing wrong with having those play preferences. Second, I'm not comfortable making any statement about the correlation that you have found because I don't necessarily want to speak for others. However, I'm not sure if D&D is necessarily more open-ended. There are places where it is but also places where it isn't. On the one hand, it does have rules lacunae, some of which are intentional and others are not. These gaps may require the GM to step in to provide their interpretation about Stealth and how it works. On the other hand, D&D has a tremendous amount of specific rules and sub-systems that cover specific situations. There are rules in 5e D&D, for example, regarding falling damage and how much damage a character takes based upon how far they have fallen. Even if we acknowledge that the GM can change or modify those rules so they are more open, we can still acknowledge the initial rules start from a place of specificity. Contrast this with games like Fate, Cortex, Dungeon World, or Blades in the Dark. There are no rules for falling damage in these games. However, characters can surely still fall and die in this game, right? Sure, but there are more generalized rules or principles that govern what happens, particularly "fiction first" principles: i.e., understand the fiction before consulting the mechanics. This is the Golden Rule of Fate. There may be times when the table agrees that the rules should be side-stepped for the sake of the fiction. This is incidentally the Silver Rule of Fate. The example used here is of a PC who punches a glass table to intimidate someone. The PC doesn't fail the roll, but the table agrees that the PC should take a mild consequence (i.e., "Glass in My Hand") because that follows the fiction. But let's go back to a PC falling. A D&D PC fails an ability check to climb. The fiction of how far they have fallen is important in so far as it determines how much damage the PC takes: i.e., 1d6 bludgeoning damage per 10 feet. So the GM declares that the PC takes 4d6 bludgeoning damage. So what happens if that same PC fell in Fate? Good question. Does the PC take damage? Not really. When the GM and player talk about what happened, the GM may decide that the PC takes Stress, though I think it likelier that the GM would rule that a Mild or even Moderate Consequence. So now the PC may have the Mild Consequence aspect of "Sprained Ankle." And because aspects are always true, the PC now has to deal with a sprained ankle, which can be invoked against them by the GM or other players. However, a different GM could rule based upon the fiction that the PC has the Moderate Consequence of "Broken Arm." Ouch. So there is still a lot of open-endednes when it comes to implementing the rules for these latter games.</blockquote>

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