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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7695275" data-attributes="member: 4937">First of all, has anyone defending or describing the GM Intrusion system in particular or failure as "complications" actually denied that reinforcements arriving is an appropriate sort of complication?  Indeed, is it being said that having reinforcements arrive is generally a worse use of GM intrusion than producing a "fumble" as Monte defined it (failure with complications that produce the sensation of PC incompetence).  When I talk about reinforcements arriving as a complication, I'm not actually introducing an idea well beyond the realm of possibility or which the system doesn't provide for.But ok, my general point doesn't at all depend on this specific case.  You say, "It's meant to provide an internally-consistent and in-narrative complication produced as a result of a Natural 1."   An orc blowing a trumpet and summoning reinforcements from elsewhere in the complex is internally-consistent and generally within the narrative.  The players in general will have no way of knowing whether or not that could happen, as they have only limited information about the environment.  And it's certainly possible that such things could happen.  But, ok, the reinforcement example offends you.Let's examine some cases that were brought up by defender's of the system, where GM intrusion occurs as a result of a failed attack action, to see if I really am misreading and misunderstanding as you suggest:1) "It starts to rain.": So if I'd hit with my arrow, would it not have started to rain?  Yes, it's certainly possible that it starting to rain at any moment is internally consistent, but unless rain was going to start anyway whether or hit or miss it's still summoning things out of thin air.  It may not be a dragon or another party of orcs, but the rain storm was invented as a result of me throwing a '1'.  2) "It turns out the orc is an unusually keen tactician (for an orc).": In this case, the orc acquires a new ability or power to exercise as a result of me missing him.  Unless it was the case that the orc was already an unusually keen tactician before I shot an arrow at him, this too is conjuring something out of thin air.  Fundamentally, because I threw a 1, the creature acquired more hit points, more powers, more spells, or more abilities that it didn't have before.  Now again, this is also still internally consistent, as the PC's would have no way of knowing that the creature didn't have these abilities before they manifested and its conceivable that some orcs are unusually keen tacticians.  But if we can see behind the screen, as a GM can, we know that the ability has been summoned into existence.3) "As you planted your foot for the shot, it tangled in some roots.": Was this hazard around before I threw a 1?  Or was it in fact conjured from thin air by the GM intrusion?  Yes, it may be true that this is a forest and some roots were around to get tangled in, and thus this is internally consistent - after all, who marks ever root on the battlemap?  But it is still true these particular roots became super entangling on the whim and at that moment.  There is really nothing the player could have done to foreseen the particular hazard of these roots and avoided them (indeed, at best doing so would have just invited different hazards).4) "This brush is filled with stinging nettles!": Again, was this hazard around before I threw a 1?  At the start of the combat, did the DM secretly record that squares X, Y, and Z contained stinging nettles, with a certain percentage chance that if entered they would provide a painful distraction?  Yes, it's of course possible that hitherto unnoticed stinging plants are hidden around the field of battle.  We aren't breaking consistency to conjure them into being, but that makes them no less conjured out of thin air.5) "The orcs move to a defensive posture. They all gain a bonus to their defense for a few rounds.": This is a variation on the orc battle-field technician where the foe gains powers and abilities on the fly.  Did they have the option to take this "defensive posture" before I fired a shot?  Is there no penalty or tradeoff involved in this posture that prevents them from taking it all the time?  Can I take this defensive posture as well?  Again, this is perhaps internally consistent, but it's none the less still conjured into being on the fly.6) "Surprise! Turns out there were two more orcs, just waiting for the right moment to jump into the fight. Your stray arrow shot flushed them from their hiding spot." Wait.... didn't you just call this idea of reinforcements arriving as a "caricaturization seems like an unfairly hyperbolic misconstruction or misreading of the Cypher System and its GM Intrusion, as well as what Charles Ryan and Monte Cook have written."   Didn't you just claim that my statement that reinforcements could arrive as the result of a failed bowshot meant I have a "heated invested" and was "injecting repeated aversions" and "misunderstanding" and portraying it as "bad-wrong-fun"?  It was Charles Ryan that introduced that as an appropriate complication, so maybe I'm not actually the one that is misunderstanding, misreading, and being overly heated here or the one throwing around aspersions.   Since it was Charles Ryan that endorsed reinforcements arriving as appropriate GM intrusion, perhaps you should take up your claim that this is a misunderstanding that indicates ignorance of the system with him.  I'll pop popcorn.And I'm not even going to get into your repeated attempts to turn this from a conversation about the art of GMing, to a conversation about me.   I have no problems with the idea of GM intrusion per se, and in particular the intrusion system does have the sort of narrative balancing elements (you can buy out of it using resources) that I think indicate an overall well done holistic design.  I don't however think this latest article shows the concept in its best light, because in an attempt to fix a very minor problem Monte appears to be introducing far more serious ones.</blockquote>

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