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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9697377" data-attributes="member: 42582">I've not said that they are the same in every respect. I have said that they are the same in some respects.One respect in which they are the same is this: before the dice are rolled, the player has a hope for what the state of the fiction will be (in one case, I - the PC - have killed the Orc, in the other I - the PC - have read the runes and thereby learned a way out); and after the dice are rolled, the fiction is in that state. AC and hit points are mechanical things. Yes, I know what the mechanical parameters are that will help determine whether the fiction ends up in the state the player wants, or some other state (let's say, that the Orc kills the PC). Those parameters, in very general terms, correlate the combat preparedness and toughness of the Orc.Obviously. That's the whole reason the example is causing controversy - that the question What do the runes say? is being answered by some process other than the GM deciding (by virtue of notes, or a heuristic that tries to model notes, or a roll on the Strange Runes table, or some other GM-centred process).But I do know the state of the Doom Pool - which tells me (again, in very general terms) how likely a PC is to be correct in their intuitions about these sorts of things. I know the rating of the Strange Runes as a Scene Distinction (d8, probably - that's the default, and I don't remember departing from the default). I know the rating of the PC's Lost in the Dungeon Complication (d12).These are not the sorts of ways of characterising a situation that you prefer. But they are the important ones in Marvel Heroic RP and my fantasy hack of it.If by "specific characteristics" you mean "what they say", then yes.Of course, there are "specific characteristics" of the Orc that are not pre-established by the GM or anyone else either, like: the Orc's name; the Orc's age; whether or not Gruumsh and Ilneval are takin a special interest in this Orc, perhaps intervening when the Orc might otherwise be skewered by an opponent to save the Orc's life; whether the Orc is fated to die here-and-now, or to live to become a great Orc champion; etc.There is no inconsistency. There is just a difference in the way situations are presented and resolved.And this is what I am finding a little frustrating about this conversation - the tendency of some posters to frame all RPGing through a rather narrow lens that happens to be their preferred lens, which assumes things like (i) all important backstory/setting elements must be established by the GM, and (ii) the only things that matter in the resolution of a declared action are very local, causal/mechanical processes. This is what I mean when I talk about (eg in reply to [USER=6915329]@Faolyn[/USER]) posters assuming a simulationist approach to how situations are presented, actions resolved, and consequences established.It is not inconsistent to use approaches that differ from that.Consider again <a href="https://mightyatom.blogspot.com/2010/10/apocalypse-world-crossing-line.html" target="_blank">this from John Harper</a>, explaining how Apocalypse World is to be played:In Apocalypse World, the players are in charge of their characters. What they say, what they do; what they feel, think, and believe; what they did in their past. The MC is in charge of the world: the environment, the NPCs, the weather, the psychic maelstrom. Sometimes, the players say things that get very close to the line. Usually this happens when the MC asks a leading question. MC: "Nero, what do the slave traders use for barter?" Player: "Oh man, those [foul people]? They use human ears." That's a case of the player authoring part of the world outside their character, however -- and this is critical -- they do it from within their character's experience and frame of reference. When Nero answers that question, he's telling something he knows about the world.Here, the player - at the GM's invitation - authors something about the setting, namely, the currency favoured by the slave traders. That is not inconsistent, just because Gygax didn't suggest it as an approach in Keep on the Borderlands. It;s just how Apocalypse World works. It's one reason why playing Apocalypse World will be pretty different from playing Keep on the Borderlands as Gygax presents that scenario.</blockquote>

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