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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6153173" data-attributes="member: 42582">If I've understood you right, FATE has a "simple resolution" mechanic like those other systems I mentioned. In which case, yep, "the easy way" is like that.I agree in D&D that the attempt to resolve via "the easy way" can often fail. That's a distinctive thing about D&D - in HW/Q, for instance, if you fail your "zoomed out" check it doesn't mean you now have to engage the scene in detailed mode; it just means the GM frames a new scene that follows on from you having failed in the last scene. The analogue in D&D would be if the MU tries to polymorph the orcs into chickens, and fails, then the GM cuts to a scene in which the chickens have the MU tied to a stake and are getting ready to burn the witch. Wherease, in fact in D&D if your "easy way" attempt fails then you can still succeed in the scene, but you have to engage it via "hard way" resolution.I think this issue of controlling pacing is certainly a significant part of it.  [MENTION=5143]Majoru Oakheart[/MENTION] has given a detailed reply to your points, and I basically agree with the general thrust of what he's said (though I don't have anything like the same epxerience with the details of 3E play).The main thing I want to add is that, in the passage above, you're looking at the play from an "in-fiction" point of view - the PCs confronted some orcs, and the threat was resolved.I'm talking about it from an "at-table" point of view. In one instance, somewhere between 10 and 60 mintues of table time was devoted to resolving things with the orcs - it's a "scene" that the players engage with, and have to resolve. Stuff happens. Points get made (by the players, by the GM). Character gets displayed. Etc.In the other instance, the scene changes more-or-less immediately. The wizard player reframes the situation into something else.That's not very different, no. But my experience is that in traditional D&D the wizard has quite a bit more of this than the fighter.I said in my post that the boundary can be blurred, and that it depends on a range of factors including system and table expectations. For instance, in Gygaxian D&D I don't think there is any significant distinction between what I'm calling action resolution, and what I'm calling scene re-framing, other than time taken at the table. (That may well be why Gygaxian D&D didn't worry too much about giving wizards more of these options than fighters.) I say this because "engaging with the fiction" isn't really an end-in-itself in Gygaxian D&D. It's all about the victory conditions (gold and XP). But as soon as you move into non-Gygaxian modes of play (eg the Dragonlance style that  [MENTION=21169]Doug McCrae[/MENTION] mentioned upthread) then engaging with the fiction does become an end in itself. We want the GM to frame good scenes (othewise our attempt to derive aesthetic pleasure from engaging with the fiction will fail), and we want those scenes to actually play out at the table.I know some people think it's "just part of RPGing" that sometimes the "big bad" dies in a single die roll. Personally, though, I think that if you're wanting to play a Dragonlance-style game, then it is a failure of design if it permits this sort of outcome - if it permits the scene to be over before it's begun. (A single die roll might still do the job, depending on the mechanical system being used, but to get that die roll you should have to engage in some fashion and actually explore the confrontation with the "big bad".)I personally favour a playstyle in which the GM has strong authority over scene-framing, precisely because otherwise the game is prone to these sorts of pleasure-reducing "fizzles". After all, once you give the players abilities that let them reframe away encounters in the polymorph-into-chicken style, the players have a fairly strong incentive to do so - especially if the resource costs of actually engaging the scene are likely to be higher (eg hit points lost compared to one spell spent). At which point the players have to choose between faithfully playing their PCs - which means deploying their "re-frame away challenges" abilities, because that's the rational in-character thing to do - or squibbing on their play of their PCs so as to have more of a fun time ("It would be boring to just polymorph the BBEG again!").Some others - eg  [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION], if I've understood right - prefer the players to have a high degree of reframing authority. Not my own preference, but I'm very happy to hear more about what it adds to sheadunne's (and others') play experience.But whichever way one leans on the distribution of scene-framing authority between players and GM, in a game in which the difference between engaging and bypassing or "fizzling" a scene matters, it's hard for me to see why the distribution of this sort of authority among the players should differ depending on PC archetype chosen. If there's a reason for players to have it, all should. If there's a reason to confine it to the GM (eg conflict of interest reasons of the sort I stated above), then none should. (This is bascially what 4e does.)The GM has a suite of resources - the Doom Pool, and the rules that govern its use - whereby s/he can introduce new Scene Distinctions or Scene Complications, or new opponents, which keep the scene alive. But more siginficantly for my example, because MHRP is based on semi-freeform descriptors rather than D&D/wargame-style times and distances, action resolution, and hence a scene, is not geographically bounded. So a player whose PC teleports away from the Skrulls can still (everything else being equal) meaningfully engage with the scene containing the skrulls - for instance by declaring a teleport back in to imopse a "surprise counter-attack" complication on the Skrulls. Or by attacking the transmission tower on the new planet, and thereby inflicting complications on the Skrulls as you scramble their telecommunications. Or perhaps by establishing some sort of asset for an ally - perhaps you teleport a handy Skrull-fighting ray gun back to them. MHRP in this respect is like HeroWars/Quest, and I assume like FATE, in being considerably more flexible in its action resolution, and hence considerably more flexible in what counts as closing a scene or keeping it still open, with in-fiction geography being a less important part of that.In my 4e game I have tried a coule of times to run scenes in which the PCs are geographically separated. I don't want to say it's hopeless, but it's not easy. The rules don't offer much support for the generation of consequences by a player whose PC is at in-fiction location A which have in-scene consequences for another player's PC at in-fiction location B. In one case I dealt with this issue by improvising with some features of the situation that had already been established - a crystal ball, a teleportation power, and a sphinx NPC with mysterious magical abilities. In another case I dealt with this issue by having NPCs move from place to place carrying with them, in their dealing with PC B, the emotional and practical consequences from PC A. But there is nothing in 4e analogous to, or as simple and general as, the MHRP ideas of creating assets and complications.I'm not sure what die roll you're talking about. But in D&D, if there is a new threat on the Seven Heavens we're probably talking about framing a new scene rather than continuing the old one.Yes, but historically D&D hasn't had much in the way of reactive teleport tracking. That's an example of what I mean when I say that the boundary betwen actin resolution and scene-reframing is sensitive to the details of the mechanical system being used.</blockquote>

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