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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5665400" data-attributes="member: 54877">DM fiat, at least part of the time, works when the DM is consistent.  And when a game isn't all fiat, but well-targeted fiat, you can really get something that sings, feels "real", but doesn't get bogged down in too much detail.  So how do you get that? If the DM is a jerk and intends to stay that way, you don't.  But then you have a bigger problem than consistency anyway. If the DM tries hard to be consistent, and he starts with something like 1st ed. AD&D--then the DM puts a lot of work into it.  He reads gaming materials and historical data to extrapolate from.  He thinks about it.  He puts in processes to flag inconsistencies and correct them over time.  He takes notes.  After he has done this for several adventures, he gets his system down and gets gradually more consistent from there on. This is how a lot of us learned it back in the day. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> So what about the DM that isn't a jerk, but doesn't necessarily have the inclination to do what it takes to learn that consistency?  You can either put in a rules framework to help him enforce consistency, or you can try to teach him how to be consistent with the fiat.  3E leaned heavily on the rules side.  4E leaned even heavier on the rules side for certain pieces while simultaneously trying to build a framework for other pieces.  Thus was born the skill challenge.   Whether such a framework can be developed that will help a person replicate the structure and freedom of that hard won AD&D knowledge without so much effort, I don't know.  It would be rather useful if you could get it, though. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /></blockquote>

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