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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9716488" data-attributes="member: 42582">You speak about "D&D" as if it's a single thing. But it's not.Here is an example of D&D play, that I've already posted in this thread in reply to you; it has exactly the same structure/process as the runes example:To reiterate - in that example the player's action declaration is "I identify what final argument will sway the maruts". The Insight check is then made, and succeeds, and so the PC identifies that argument. The player then authors and states the argument in question.The conjecture is supported by details in the fiction, in the sense that the character, being relevantly experienced, notes those details and arrives at a conjecture. Those fictional details aren't narrated by anyone. In this respect it's not unlike a D&D combat - we assume that the PC and the PC's opponent are thrusting, dodging, parrying etc, and that each character is noting and responding to those details; but we don't actually work out what they are and narrate them.Likewise when a climbing check is resolved, the character presumably plans a route, tests various holds, etc but those things aren't actually narrated and if someone asked "What route did the PC take to get to the top of the cliff" no at the table is able to answer, although in the fiction there obviously is an answer.Just as the player of the climbing PC doesn't need to be able to explain how they identify and traverse their route - that is subsumed in the character being a skill climber - so the player of this PC doesn't need to be able to explain how they arrive at a conjecture as to the nature of the runes - that is subsumed in their being a Solitary Traveller and Cunning Expert.All I see in your post is that you are insisting that certain cognitive tasks should be resolved differently from certain other cognitive tasks, and physical tasks: that those cognitive tasks need to be resolved by the player of the PC actually performing the cognitive act, rather than offloading that to the resolution system. (I say "certain cognitive tasks" because you don't require the player of the climbing PC to actually plan a route up the cliff prior to then rolling to resolve their physical effort.)In a RPG that focuses on (i) the GM presenting puzzles and mysteries of various sorts to the players, which (ii) the players then try and solve, you insistence makes sense. But those are not the only RPGs around, and they are not the only ones that can involve simulation.</blockquote>

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