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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 9712965" data-attributes="member: 22779">BTW, why did we keep getting stuck on Runequest?  Did I make the mistake of bringing it up?  I'll freely admit, I've never played it and know next to nothing about it other than by reputation.  But, for some reason, it's become the main example.  No idea why, and if it was me, I'm really sorry since I honestly cannot comment on it.  But, no, it's not "any information" in D&D since it doesn't provide any information that discounts other narratives.  Why did the attack miss?  You have no idea.  No one has any idea.  It could have beend dodged, it could have bounced off armor, the attacker could have stumbled, or magical combat pixies rose up and defended me.  Any and all narrations are equally valid as far as the system is concerned, although, to be fair, typically the table is going to limit those narrations somewhat.  OTOH, you can easily play D&D combat with zero narration.  You don't need to narrate anything in D&D combat and it works perfectly fine.In more sim leaning games, that's not possible.  We KNOW that you dodged that attack because you succeeded on that dodge check.  We KNOW that the attack bounced off because you made that Toughness check.  So on and so forth.  The system might not tell you in detail what happened, but, it does give you enough information that you can say X is true and Y is untrue.  Take GURPS skills.  (I'm using the 4e rules here).  You have a rating in a skill.  So long as you roll 3d6 under that rating, you succeed.  And because almost every check you make will give you a different result based on your margin of success or failure, the system itself is going to give some information as to why things happened.  In D&D, because the die roll includes so many possible justifications - anything from you were hungry to the rock face collapsing - we can't actually know anything about why you failed your check.  Just that you failed.</blockquote>

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