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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7818643" data-attributes="member: 16814">Yes, you don't have to play D&D that way, but I think that it's fighting the game to do so, more or less.  The system is designed from a DM-curated assumption of play, from the presentation of scenes, to the challenges therein, to the adjudication thereof.  On top of that, it focuses on stories of zero to hero, encourages narrative-direction from the DM, and uses a combat system that is heavily weighted towards problem-solving by causes the problems to stop breathing.  4e differed in that, accidentally IMO, it actually facilitated a style of play that is more player driven than DM driven.  I've played ChartMaster before as well, but I'll be honest that I couldn't recall enough to tell you if it also lent itself more towards player-driven play than 5e does.  So, no, I really don't think that "you could bend 5e into something more player-directed" really works well with the system as-built and certainly not with the predominant style of play in D&D.  I don't think that pointing out different games and how they play really addresses issues extant in 5e D&D.  System matters.Take the OP situation.  Here, the DM introduced a no-win in the form of a dragon well above the PC's capability.  The PC still made an effort to play out of the situation, but lacking the framework to establish stakes for the action or to enforce the player's goal on a success, the resolution fell, as 5e directs, to the DM to determine.  As noted by the OP, a mistake in this adjudication was made, but this mistake was enabled by the way 5e operationalizes play in the mechanics -- it's all DM decides.  So, the DM presented the outcome and hoped the player would guess that the dragon wasn't entirely sold on this course and would challenge it again.  The player fails to guess this and determines from the resolution of his attempt being better than everyone dies, accepts the outcome.  Here, we're now asked to resolve the trope and necessary outcomes according to our understanding of the trope, not the player's, despite the fact that you're encouraging play that would establish the player as the driver of the scene to begin with.  It seems odd that we're ignoring the play that got here, and how the tropes of D&D play led there, but then applying understanding from either fiction or other games to determine what the trope should mean.  This is what I'm driving at -- and the claim that you might could play 5e in a way conducive to other game's assumptions that would enable the trope as played in other games seems very, very odd to me.  5e has ruts, and, IIRC, that's one of the reasons you dislike the play it entails.  Those ruts are that the DM is final arbiter, so whatever the DM's assumption is will be a rut play lays in.  Another is how the system resolves actions -- this is a rut that's entailed multiple discussions on action resolution with the predominate form of play being players call for checks that DMs adjudicate according to how they interpret the scene with little to no input from the player (a more player-center approach is strongly attacked).  Another rut is that when initiative is rolled, removal of all hit-points is the usual goal.  These ruts strongly constrain play away from what you suggest, and the community, largely, is happy with them.  I think suggesting that you could ignore large parts of the community and also the way the system is built to internalize the above is largely a non-starter as a general solution.  I specifically do not think it adds to the OP's scenario or ask for assistance.</blockquote>

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