Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Introducing Complications Without Forcing Players to Play the "Mother May I?" Game
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7559018" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Yes I am, following your lead: the player declares that his/her PC goes to the tea house to look for sect members.</p><p></p><p>This is like in AD&D where a player declares "I search the wall to look for signs of secret doors."</p><p></p><p>It contrasts with, say "I go to the tea house to see if anything interesting is going down there" or "I search the wall looking for anything that differs from just a plain, flat, solid wall."</p><p></p><p>Yes. The GM decides the outcome of the action declaration.</p><p></p><p>Says who? In AD&D, a legitimate action declaration for a 4th level paladin is "I meditate and pray for my warhorse". And for a magic-user is "I spend three weeks in my tower researching this spell." AD&D also allows spending a day traversing a hex to be resolved as a single action (check for getting lost, check for encounters).</p><p></p><p>In Classic Traveler, a legitimate aaction declaration is "I spend a week looking for a branch of the Psionics Institute".</p><p></p><p>This depends heavily on system. THere are the examples I gave just above. The Wilderness Survival Guide (late 80s AD&D) allowed hunting as an action declaration, which equates to going out into the wilderness looking for an animal to kill. 4e D&D allows foraging as an action declaration.</p><p></p><p>I don't know whay system [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION] is playing - the OP doesn't tell us - but there's no reason to think that it is more narrow than the range of permissible action declarations in AD&D, Classic Traveller and 4e.</p><p></p><p>I've bolded the bit that you keep saying but that no one in this thread has suggested as a good way of running a game. (That's not to say that it may not be a good thing in som circumstances. But no one has actually suggested it.)</p><p></p><p>The most common way to resolve action declarations in most RPGs is by dice rolls. <em>I go to the tea house to see if there are sect members there</em> can be resolved by dice rolls pretty straightforwardly in many systems, and I posted as much quite a way upthread:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"></p><p>To be frank, the tea house example in which the GM simply decides, unilaterally, that there are no sect members at the tea house, seems like a version of "the sect can be found only on one spot on the map" - the spot might be bigger than a single 30-yard hex, but apparently doesn't include the tea house!</p><p></p><p> [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] and I are also emulating "living breathing worlds" in our RPGing - that is why in our games the most unlikely things sometimes happen (like perhaps a sect member being at the tea house to meet his mum for tea, if that's what the action resolution dice point us towards).</p><p></p><p>You can take that up with the OP - I am simply following the usage he introduced in the thread title and first post.</p><p></p><p>But the idea that <em>role play</em> and <em>in character exploration</em> aren't important in games like DW or BW is obviously ridiculous. Likewise that "traditional" RPGing has to involve the sort of GM role you are putting forward: it hardly gets more traditional than Classic Traveller, and that system needn't inovlve that sort of GM role at all.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7559018, member: 42582"] Yes I am, following your lead: the player declares that his/her PC goes to the tea house to look for sect members. This is like in AD&D where a player declares "I search the wall to look for signs of secret doors." It contrasts with, say "I go to the tea house to see if anything interesting is going down there" or "I search the wall looking for anything that differs from just a plain, flat, solid wall." Yes. The GM decides the outcome of the action declaration. Says who? In AD&D, a legitimate action declaration for a 4th level paladin is "I meditate and pray for my warhorse". And for a magic-user is "I spend three weeks in my tower researching this spell." AD&D also allows spending a day traversing a hex to be resolved as a single action (check for getting lost, check for encounters). In Classic Traveler, a legitimate aaction declaration is "I spend a week looking for a branch of the Psionics Institute". This depends heavily on system. THere are the examples I gave just above. The Wilderness Survival Guide (late 80s AD&D) allowed hunting as an action declaration, which equates to going out into the wilderness looking for an animal to kill. 4e D&D allows foraging as an action declaration. I don't know whay system [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION] is playing - the OP doesn't tell us - but there's no reason to think that it is more narrow than the range of permissible action declarations in AD&D, Classic Traveller and 4e. I've bolded the bit that you keep saying but that no one in this thread has suggested as a good way of running a game. (That's not to say that it may not be a good thing in som circumstances. But no one has actually suggested it.) The most common way to resolve action declarations in most RPGs is by dice rolls. [I]I go to the tea house to see if there are sect members there[/I] can be resolved by dice rolls pretty straightforwardly in many systems, and I posted as much quite a way upthread: [indent][/indent]To be frank, the tea house example in which the GM simply decides, unilaterally, that there are no sect members at the tea house, seems like a version of "the sect can be found only on one spot on the map" - the spot might be bigger than a single 30-yard hex, but apparently doesn't include the tea house! [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] and I are also emulating "living breathing worlds" in our RPGing - that is why in our games the most unlikely things sometimes happen (like perhaps a sect member being at the tea house to meet his mum for tea, if that's what the action resolution dice point us towards). You can take that up with the OP - I am simply following the usage he introduced in the thread title and first post. But the idea that [I]role play[/I] and [I]in character exploration[/I] aren't important in games like DW or BW is obviously ridiculous. Likewise that "traditional" RPGing has to involve the sort of GM role you are putting forward: it hardly gets more traditional than Classic Traveller, and that system needn't inovlve that sort of GM role at all. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Introducing Complications Without Forcing Players to Play the "Mother May I?" Game
Top