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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LostSoul" data-source="post: 5566787" data-attributes="member: 386">Sorcerer's conflict resolution rules work like this.You have 4 stats rated as a die pool number - Stamina, Lore, Past/Cover, and Will.  Each has one or two descriptors, like "Lore 4: Unnatural Means; I bathe in hot coals every day".  When you get into a conflict you roll one of your stats if the descriptor applies, and 1 die if it doesn't.You can't say "I roll Stamina" without describing what you're doing.  The game literally cannot proceed; we don't have enough information.  Do we need to roll?  How many dice do you roll?  What happens when you succeed or fail?  What bonus dice are you going to get?You get bonus and/or penalty dice for the specifics of your action.  You never have enough dice so you want to build off previous actions, and make sure that you take smart and creative ones.The equivalent of saying "I roll Stamina" in 4E or 3E would be to say, as your turn, "I rolled a 19."  Is that a save, a skill check, a move over challenging terrain, using a power, or what?When you use Spinning Sweep on a snake, it doesn't matter what your character actually did; what matters is the attack roll, HP damage, and condition applied.  I think that none of these are part of the fiction, they're part of the real world, the same way landing on Park Place is.  They suggest something fictional - you flipped the snake over on its back, you spent a week holed up in the penthouse with hookers and blow - but that fictional element isn't part of the game; the game doesn't need it to proceed.Here's a quick combat that happened in our last game:Dhalia Doomfey heard some painful moans coming from a haughty courtesan's room.  She's got Martial Awareness - a skill that lets her know when violence is going down - and the hair on the back of her neck stood up, telling her that something was wrong.The fact that she has Martial Awareness as a skill means that we have to consider the fictional elements of the game world in a way that we wouldn't if she had a general Perception skill.  Martial Awareness is only applicable in certain situations, and those situations are governed by the fictional details of the game world.  We needed to know that violence was occurring in order to apply the skill.She tried to pick the lock to the door but failed since she was using improvised tools.  She decided to burst through the door, using her gauntlets of ogre power, tumbling into the room, trying to appear drunk.She saw Mysteval the Portal-Watcher tormenting the haughty courtesan with a spell - she was held by bands of white fire, burning her flesh.  When he saw Dhalia, he said, "I'm glad you decided to join us," and began casting a spell, turning his hand toward Dhalia in a clutching manner, as if to grab her.The description of his spell casting is going to be important.Dhalia's player wanted to use her power Sudden Surge.  However, this requires that she has something to push off of - if that fictional requirement is used, she can use the power all the time.  Since she tumbled into the room, she wasn't next to the wall.  As DM, I didn't have a map of the room, so I rolled a d6, giving a 50% chance that there would be something nearby.  Nope.We determined if she could use Sudden Surge based on the description of her previous action; if she hadn't tumbled into the room, she could have pushed off of the wall.  That's how fictional details matter!Dhalia saw the spell being cast, and an icy hand forming in the air to grab her.  She got up, Cursed Mysteval in the name of Bercalion of the Dark Vow, and leapt at him, grabbing and twisting his spell-casting hand and grabbing him in the throat.  She succeeded, and as Mysteval's spell formed, she twisted his hand away at the last moment so the icy hand missed her.She got a +2 bonus to her Ref because she twisted his hand like so.  That was enough for the hand to miss her.In the next round, Dhalia put her leg behind his and tripped him with force, slamming his head to the ground and stunning him.  Mysteval grabbed her with his hand.Mysteval was dazed as a result of this attack, which was consistent with the fiction.  Dhalia got a bonus to attack because of her description of her action - the precise way she tripped him - and the fact that she already had him grabbed, her trip following up directly on her last action.So there's a lot of fiction and creativity generated there.  In standard 4E it would look something like this:Roll initDhalia wins, uses Sudden Surge to hit him for some damageMysteval shifts back, casts Bigby's Icy Hand, missesDhalia uses some other power, possibly Spinning Sweep; he takes damage and has the prone conditionMysteval responds by sustaining Bigby's Icy Hand, hitsetc.We could generate similar fiction, but it wouldn't have an effect on the choices the players make round-to-round.  But we don't have to generate any fiction at all; we could ignore it and simply track HP and conditions, and the game would proceed in the same way.</blockquote>

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