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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6258234" data-attributes="member: 2067">Generally speaking, if Y happens, it must have been caused by something (X). If in the mechanics, HP is lost, there must be a reason that HP is lost. If in the fiction, injury is suffered, there must be a source of that injury. The mechanic only exists to resolve the question of "I do X. What Y happens?" The mechanics do not resolve the question of "Y happened. What X did I do?"The reason for this is because the action the players take in a TTRPG is "I do x." This is a core gameplay loop: Player does a thing, DM describes the results of doing the thing, player does another thing, and on and on. The mechanics need an input (action) to describe an output (result). Causality works that way, too. Cause and effect. Effect depends on what caused it. A mechanical process in a game like D&D is there to help adjudicate the effect of the various actions the people are taking in the fiction. The system only generates a result when it is compelled to do so by some original cause. So the players know the cause before the result is generated. Regardless of the result, each player knows what happened that needed resolving. They know the inputs. The system helps generate the outputs. It isn't true that a physical description hasn't been generated "at all." It hasn't been generated in great detail, but the input action is a known quailty, and so has been generated by the player declaring, "I do X." No system is going to model all the little details, but that's not the ask. The system is just asked to produce a broad output based on a broad input. I do X, what Y happens? The exact steps along the way are subject to personal interpretation.This seems to presume that the output is determined before the input, that we know the effect before we know the cause, that we resolve some process before the players ask for that process to be resolved. That seems backwards to me. We know the input, the action that needs resolution. What the mechanics resolve is the output. The system need not concern itself overly much with detail. The input is broadly described ("I attack the orc!"), and the output can be broadly described ("The orc is wounded!"). Genre considerations of the individual table can help direct the description (a table into medieval swordsmanship might reference specific styles and blows; a table with doctors on it might apply more detail to the wounds; a table playing it like a Tarantino movie might have blood & guts everywhere). The systems don't, but the players do, namely by dictating that their characters perform an action before the system resolves that action. I think the style consideration that may lay at the heart of this is that there is a big gulf between those who put agency in the hands of the players (cause -> effect) and those that put that agency in the hands of the system (effect....but what cause?).</blockquote>

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