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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6727979" data-attributes="member: 42582">Stocking a dungeon by random roll is a time honour tradition. So is the GM making up rooms, creatures, tricks and traps, etc, non-randomly.What I claimed is that the number of D&amp;D players who have reasoned backwards, from encounters to the GM's random stocking table, is approximately zero. The GM's random table is not something that most D&amp;D players are trying to work out.I'm not sure what you mean here. There is a reading of your sentence that is true; here it is: Anything and everything a human being can do in the real world is a permissible action declaration by a D&amp;D player. In addition, anything and everything that a human being might do in an imaginary magical world is at least a candidate to be a permissible action declaration by a D&amp;D player.I also assert: as a matter of actual history, and the practice of D&amp;D game design, the action declarations typically preceded the writing of rules to handle them. The design of D&amp;D's rules was ad hoc and reactive, triggered by actual players at actual tables making action declarations for their PCs.I think this is probably the most fundamental point at issue.I think that adjudicating D&amp;D has always had everything to do with &quot;really existing human beings&quot;. And that ability scores have almost always been treated as attributesFor instance, when Gygax says (in his DMG, p 104) that a GM, when playing monsters, should &quot;[c]onsider also cunning and instinct&quot;, Gygax is not reminding the GM to have regard to particular game mechanics. The GM is expected to use knowledge of the real world - how, in the real world, people and creatures of varying intelligence and ingenuity respond to various sorts of situations.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6727979, member: 42582"] Stocking a dungeon by random roll is a time honour tradition. So is the GM making up rooms, creatures, tricks and traps, etc, non-randomly. What I claimed is that [I]the number of D&D players who have reasoned backwards, from encounters to the GM's random stocking table[/I], is approximately zero. The GM's random table is not something that most D&D players are trying to work out. I'm not sure what you mean here. There is a reading of your sentence that is true; here it is: [I]Anything and everything a human being can do in the real world is a permissible action declaration by a D&D player[/I]. In addition, [I]anything and everything that a human being might do in an imaginary magical world is at least a candidate to be a permissible action declaration by a D&D player[/I]. I also assert: as a matter of actual history, and the practice of D&D game design, [I]the action declarations typically preceded the writing of rules to handle them[/I]. The design of D&D's rules was ad hoc and reactive, triggered by actual players at actual tables making action declarations for their PCs. I think this is probably the most fundamental point at issue. I think that adjudicating D&D has always had everything to do with "really existing human beings". And that ability scores have almost always been treated as [I]attributes[/I] For instance, when Gygax says (in his DMG, p 104) that a GM, when playing monsters, should "[c]onsider also cunning and instinct", Gygax is not reminding the GM to have regard to particular game mechanics. The GM is expected to use knowledge of the real world - how, in the real world, people and creatures of varying intelligence and ingenuity respond to various sorts of situations. [/QUOTE]

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