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Message: <blockquote data-quote="D'karr" data-source="post: 3139859" data-attributes="member: 336">And that is the part I don't "like" about a system like that for D&D.  How would a character, in D&D, know what his chances of accomplishing X are?  He has to ask the DM.  A reasonable DM will provide a reasonable answer.  But an unreasonable answer does not immediately mean that the DM is being abusive.Anything reasonable, not covered by the rules, should still have a reasonable chance of success.  You can call it a DC a Percentage or anything else that suits.  However, every action has a consequence, or should have one.  So for example if I want to try to sommersault over my enemy I have a DC of 25.  In other games I might have a percentage chance.  In the "agreement" game the DM and I agree that if I make the roll I make the sommersault.  Up to this point there is no difference between the three systems.  BTW, in D&D this is already covered by the rules.But what happens if I try something reasonable not necessarily covered by the rules.  Let's say I want to jump off a cliff and land on the back of the flying Roc just below us.  There are many ways a DM could handle this.  He might chose to assign an ability check with X DC and a grapple check or a jump/tumble check and an attack roll or any myriad ways to resolve it.  The fact is that at this point a reasonable DM is trying to come up with a way for the character to do X.  In every game that does not have rules specifically for this he would have to do the same.  If the "agreement" game has a mechanic for it then it can be used.  If there are no rules for it the DM is using DM Fiat.  He is in essence improvising.  And improvisation is DMing, because no matter how hard they try, no game out there can ever hope to have rules for all the crazy things that players will attempt to do.  And even if the game has rules that generally cover that, what about those times when the rules just get in the way?Yes, and in D&D he doesn't have to tell the player what the AC of creature X is either.  But we still trust him to be reasonable about it.  Do we not trust him because he doesn't have to tell us or do we not trust him because he is untrustworthy.  Your example above is an example of poor DMing, and of course an abuse of DM Fiat.In the above case, what if the fact that you are going to get caught is necessary to this "narrative".I'll keep this under the understanding that we are talking about reasonable DMs and reasonable players.Let's say that I'm DMing an adventure in which I need the players to be captured.  Let's say I have a perfectly valid reason for the players to be captured.  In D&D I can go about it multiple ways.  All of them according to the rules without any DM fiat.  The DM Fiat came into effect when I decided that they needed to get captured.  However, if the rules don't cover it I'd have to make something up that allows me to capture them, once again using DM Fiat.  What if originally the adventure did not require me to capture the characters but halfway through the adventure I figure that situation X would make more sense if the characters were captured?  Am I allowed to change the script to make the adventure make more sense or make it more enjoyable?  I imagine that in the "agreement" game I could do something like this also.  If it requires the player to agree to it, then either the player trusts me enough that he'll allow himself to be captured or the game has some clause that allows me to "break" the rules.  Because in this specific adventure, if the players are not captured there is no adventure.  If the game does not allow that then the DM is left to decide how to accomplish that.In both those cases the fact remains that the DM will have to make some judgment calls that might not be covered by the rules, in some cases without the players consent.  Does that make the "arbitrary decision" any less valid?Since we are talking about "reasonable" group, the questions anwer still remains.  Is DM Fiat Ok? Yes.However, even in those games the DM is going to have to improvise.  If he is forced to improvise he is using DM Fiat.  In the game you are using as an example both the DM and player have to agree to the outcome.  If you are playing with a reasonable DM the answer to DM fiat is still yes.  Hopefully the player is not an asshat himself and agrees to the game as brought forward by the DM.I disagree.  A good or bad DM can always improve and there is good reason to have all those sources of information.  DM Fiat does not pose a greater risk of "enormous game-ruining potential" than using the Mystic-Thurge in a game.But I'll still say it.  However, I would amend that to be "Don't play in crappy games."  Even bad DMs need the practice to get better and a "reasonable" group should be able to help a bad DM become better, even good.I don't have much sympathy for people that choose to stay in crappy games and then come to places like this and cry about it.I've already found a game like that, D&D.</blockquote>

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