But, the mechanics aren't telling you *what* the results are, in a narrative sense. They're telling you *how good* the results are, giving only very vague, high-level qualities.
The results are that stormtrooper took three hits. That happens narratively. The ongoing story now involves that stormtrooper having taken those hits. The game leaves it up to you to determine how those hits happened, but in no case can you describe a situation where those hits didn't happen -- you are obligated to tell a story that conforms with how the mechanics have already determined the event played out.
That can be a fun game, but it's not typically the kind of game I'm looking for from my RPGs, because I don't like how that disconnects my choices as a player from my character's choices. Part of the fun I get of RPGs is that they scratch my acting itch, that it's fun to
inhabit these roles, and this kind of mechanic weakens that fun.
Exactly what they are then depends on what actions you choose. Two players, with the same character and same die rolls can have events come out completely differently - one character decides to use the "super stupendous success" to run a sword through the villain's heart, and another uses it to make the villain slip on a banana. In one case the villain's quite dead, in the other he's quite embarrassed - the results are therefore not really determined by the mechanics without regard to your narration, are they?
Ah, but
what happens doesn't depend on the actions you choose. It depends on the result the rules determined. That's part of what I mean about agency, about the "driver" of the narrative: I prefer my in-character player choices to determine what the mechanics need to resolve, rather than having to have them fit the mechanical result determined independent of my in-character player choices.
It occurs to me that you could, as a player, in your head choose what your action will be, roll the dice, announce what you had in your head and then abide by that decision, just as you would in the traditional form. How is it, then, that the mechanics are doing any more of the determining than usual, when it can be played as usual?
Well, RW's description and the OP centered on the "reversing" of that order, so mostly I was discussing the thread topic and the way the game is apparently designed to be played, rather than thinking about all the infinite possible things one might hypothetically do with these apparent design intents (such as ignore them). If the presumption of the game is that one rolls and then narrates the outcome of those rolls, that's the mechanics driving the action, regardless of the fact that one could hypothetically not do that maybe.
Several folks have suggested that there's a flaw here, in that the system is vulnerable to being "gamed", by sticking all the failures into inconsequential things, and all the successes into major things that are good for the character. I'm not sure if that's a bug, or a feature - it may be exactly the dynamic the designers are aiming for.
And that's fine. So long as the bad guys have a similar ability to shift results, the whole thing comes out in the wash.
Well, it's cinematic, for sure. It makes the player think about directing the scene from a voyeur standpoint rather than simply controlling their character. Which, you know, not necessarily out of character for a game based on a film. It's just not going to scratch the itch of anyone hoping for a more intimate mindset, though. Less a game of
playing a role and more a game of
telling a story. Which is a different kind of fun.