D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Pedantic]

Whilst I haven't explicitly advocated it on these boards, I am a proponent of it, but then you seem to consider me "Narrativist-leaning folk".

That said, "goal and approach" is simply a contraction of "players should state their goal and approach", it's hardly the obfuscating jargon that often came out of The Forge.

I think there's a little more than that going on. Your example above uses goal essentially as a clarifying question about the situation, not as a load bearing part of resolution. "Ask for more details, then declare an action" vs. "negotiate the ultimate impact of your action" are different play loops, even if both can be serviced by a "I want to do X to accomplish Y" utterance.

 

[JConstantine]

A living world sandbox compared to a traditional railroad is not very GM driven. There’s more to GM driven than ‘independent of the player’ world.

Best I can tell, @pemerton views GM-created as synonymous with GM-driven, where others view a distinction.

 

[FrogReaver]

Best I can tell, @pemerton views GM-created as synonymous with GM-driven, where others view a distinction.

I don’t think that’s nearly nuanced enough.

 

[Faolyn]

The point is that there are multiple possibilities, and the GM is not choosing which when they roll, so the ultimate decision at the table is not up to them if they're using the rules correctly.

I don't see what's wrong with the GM choosing. If a monster in D&D has multiple different attacks, you choose which one to use. A good GM isn't going to just spam the most powerful attack they can simply because it's the most powerful and they want to really hurt the PCs, nor will they only pick the weakest one so as to let the players win. They pick which one makes the most sense for the monster and their surroundings at the time.

Same with everything else.

 

[Faolyn]

No. It absolutely does suddenly change height. You describe it as some grass over there and nothing else. That means that the players have a very incomplete view of the scene. That the grass might be long enough for someone to hide in is absolutely something that adventurers traveling through dangerous wilderness would immediately note. Heck, that's part and parcel of basic training.

But, you just describe it as "grass". So, the players don't pay any attention to it because if there was any reason to pay attention to it, you should have told them so.

But, you don't. Dm's never do.

Except, as I said, I do. So maybe you don't want to use absolutes?

 

[Faolyn]

This could easily be true. The PC's spot the ambush because the grass wasn't long enough. They succeed on their perception check, so, now the grass is not long enough to hide the ambushers.

Or because the ambusher moved against the wind, or was wearing a color that didn't blend in, or the sun glinted off the metal of their drawn weapon, or even something on the silly side like the ambusher sneezed.

There's plenty of ways to do this without having magically height-altering grass.

 

[Faolyn]

I'm not appealing to authority: I'm describing a fairly well-known RPG rulebook.

The thing is, I'm pretty sure most people here would rather hear your view than the view of some guy (since you've quoted a lot of guys) who created a game ages ago.

 

[JConstantine]

I'm not familiar with those rules, but it sounds similar to what earlier editions of D&D did for some things.

The Black Hack is basically an OSR retro-clone of B/X, so yes. BRP, however, is the percentile system used in Call of Cthulhu, Mythras, etc.

 

[Faolyn]

I guess noone would mind the player rolling the wandering monster with their hands. The problem come when the player for some reason is applying an unrelated skill modifier of their character to that roll, and/or that roll determines more than just the wandering monster.

The actual problem, I think, is that people are viewing the cook as a wandering monster when they're not. They're not there to try to stop or harm the PCs; they're a complication. It's yes, but.

 

[FrogReaver]

The actual problem, I think, is that people are viewing the cook as a wandering monster when they're not. They're not there to try to stop or harm the PCs; they're a complication. It's yes, but.

That framing makes it worse from the d&d sim perspective IMO.