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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8435222" data-attributes="member: 42582">I find that these issues of how play is approached can reflect both system and player inclination and aptitude.In 4e D&D, all my players were looking for ways to be mechanically effective. The game cries out for that sort of attitude - otherwise the intricacies of its PC build system, and how that feeds into action resolution, become pointless and even probably counterproductive.In Classic Traveller, on the other hand, PC gen is random. The players play what they rolled. That said, the most successful optimiser in 4e (my friend who is a financial planner who specialises in optimisation mathematics) does push harder with his Traveller PC than any of the others (he is also the one who blew up the trial with a concealed grenade).Probably his least optimised play is actually Prince Valiant, and I think that's because of all the systems we've been playing over the past several years it combines a low scope for mechanical optimisation (skills go from zero ranks to six, and that means exactly what it says on the tin - roll that many dice for your checks - and there are no feats, spells etc to make things more intricate and "exploitable") with a higher focus on (melo)drama than on procedural success.I think I've posted before that his BW PCs advance at a furious pace because he plays in aggressive author stance, declaring the actions that will yield the checks that will net him the advancement he wants and retroactively motivating his PC to want to perform those actions; whereas I advance a bit more slowly because I prefer to play in fairly intense actor stance, relying on my Beliefs and the actions that flow from them to interact with my PC build to generate the requisite checks. The system is sufficiently well-designed that my reliance isn't futile; but my hope is no match for his dedicated pursuit!In Prince Valiant, players can earn Storyteller Certificates from the GM, by doing stuff that the GM finds impressive and/or amusing. And these can be spent for fiat victories (within various specified categories of effect, but that includes Slay a Foe in Combat).The fictional positioning has to support the use of the certificate. So when one of the knights - the one who is weakest in combat - found himself in the waters of the Black Sea fighting a "dragon" (ie a super-big crocodile) he had to succeed at an appropriate Agility check to position himself to stab the dragon with his spear before he could then spend his certificate to auto-kill it.It's the second time that player has used a certificate to perform an impressive "kill steal", with the result that he has a reputation as a knight which in a sense far outruns his baseline skill, but is the result of his luck and guts (ie the way the certificate effect has been narrated).Upthread I mentioned that I think 5e D&D is ambiguous about how the Rustic Hospitality and Natural Explorer abilities are meant to work. I think the explanation of the Prince Valiant certificates is much clearer - these are auto-wins for a particular challenge. Whereas the D&D abilities are explained in terms of task success but leave open what that might mean in "meta", dynamics-of-play-at-the-table terms.The Wish spell, on the other hand, is far less ambiguous in this respect - and as a result has all its legacy baggage! I think the spells somewhat easy repeatability has explained some of this, but not all of it - and in 5e that repeatability is rather curtailed. As you imply/allude to in the last couple of sentences I've quoted, a full explanation would have to engage with what is considered a fair approach to winning, and what is considered an exploitative workaround, in D&D play  . . .</blockquote>

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