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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6371152" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't know what RPGs you're familiar with, so I'm not sure if these examples answer your question: I would point to DungeonWorld, Marvel Heroic RP, HeroWars/Quest, and many similar games.Not to mention 4e skill challenges. (Which are very different in resolution technique from 4e combat.)These games have systematic ways for establishing consensus over the fiction (with the GM taking the lead), and for allowing players to bring their PC build featurs to bear, without the game breaking. (Not to say they're necessarily perfect - but they show how it can be done in a reasonable, functional way.)(Also - they're not the only viable form of RPG design, obviously. But I think they answer your particular question in the context of this thread.)The thing is, to me, the rules aren't non-specific. They are several hundred words. And interact with various mechanical subsytems like elven and halfling special abilities.If the idea is to let GMs decide, why not say something like "If you attack from hidden you get advantage. You become hidden by making a successful Stealth check. To make a Stealth check you must have sufficient cover/concealment that your enemies can't see you.  You remain hidden by not exposing yourself to your enemies (by sight, noise, smell etc); if in doubt compare your Stealth result to the enemy's passive perception."Then halflings could say something like "Because you are small, quick and lucky, you can hide behind your larger friends." And elves could say something like "Because you are a fey creature of the wilderness, you can hide in rain, snow and long grass."Those rules would be non-ambiguous. And would give the GM power, under the assumption typical to D&D that - if in doubt - the GM has authority to adjudicate matters of fictional positioning.My main framing for thinking about rules drafting and interpretation is legislation. A poorly-drafted at can force judges to make creative interpretive decisions. I don't think of this as the same thing as an act which expressly confers discretionary or interpretive power upon a judge.No one is objecting to "common sense" interpretation being required, that I can see.And my point is that there are better and worse ways of writing rules to support GM adjudication of fictional positioning via common sense. If the idea is to prioritise fictional positioning over technical rules concepts, then writing hundreds of words of rules that obssess over technical rules concepts isn't the way to do it.</blockquote>

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