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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kenada" data-source="post: 9102264" data-attributes="member: 70468">It’s been a while since I last read it, so I reread A Quick Primer to Old School Gaming this morning. I don’t think the comparison is that unfair. It says at the very beginning that the examples are meant to illustrate where the mechanics are used, and that good GMs in a “modern” game would not run them in such a boring way. Unlike the article, it’s not making a claim that rulings leading to more creativity. It’s demonstrating how play between the two styles differs.To put it another way, I think even the examples were like <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/the-skill-system-is-one-dimensional.699295/page-4#post-9098674" target="_blank">worked example</a> I did recently for my homebrew system, it would have a lot on the mechanical touch points. The process of setting up a Skill Check involves evaluating methods (skills) and approaches (attributes) along with resources you can deploy and how/whether the group is working together. It’s mechanically up front and in your face, but that’s by design. In practice, it doesn’t lead to the lack of creativity in play as the blog article would suggest, but there’s no denying that it may involve more mechanics than some should like.Like I said in <a href="https://www.enworld.org/goto/post?id=9102085" target="_blank">my previous post</a>, the style described in A Quick Primer to Old School Gaming isn’t really my thing. I don’t want to be making rulings because I think it’s important the players are able to reason about the tools they have available and devise tactics they can trust will work. I also worry it would lead to turtling after getting burned a few times. I definitely don’t want my players doing that. I want them to be creative and try things, which appropriate rules can also facilitate.For example, I suspect my players would not have tried to <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/commentary-thread-for-that-“describe-your-game-in-five-words”-thread.682741/post-8712297" target="_blank">lead away a bulette from their settlement</a>, <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/commentary-thread-for-that-“describe-your-game-in-five-words”-thread.682741/page-12#post-8955689" target="_blank">lure a dragon into eating a poisoned corpse</a>, or <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/commentary-thread-for-that-“describe-your-game-in-five-words”-thread.682741/page-14#post-9084104" target="_blank">finally ambush that bulette</a> in a rulings-based approach. They actually commented on that during the session with the dragon, indicating they thought I would block their plan (because it was kind of ridiculous), but the system is set up so that I can’t. If they succeed at setting up the corpse (which they did) and luring the dragon (which they also did), it will eat the corpse. It still gets a Defense Check, but getting to that point was handled by rules not rulings.</blockquote>

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