NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8501010" data-attributes="member: 42582">If everything is done just by consulting the cues, with no need to engage a shared fiction, then it seems to me that we don't have a RPG as distinct from a board/wargame. (I've never played one of the 4e-era D&D adventure boardgames (Wrath of Ashardalon et al) but I assume they play like this.)This is why Baker chooses an example - taking the higher ground - where the fictional conception is crucial; and it's why I gave an example - blasting Miska with a Gust of Wind underneath the plinth - where the fictional conception is crucial.So it's wrong to say (or at least imply) that the +2 does all the gameplay work. The gameplay has two components - making a move in the fiction (taking the high ground; blasting beneath the plinth); and then having this feed into the mechanical resolution process that engages the cues (the dice rolls in Baker's example, the squares within the AoE in my example). A different example, that shows how RPG game play does not always depend upon cues or mechanics, would be one where the arrow goes from clouds-to-clouds: eg I take the high ground with the GM responding From your vantage point you can see the warg-riders coming towards you - notice that the clouds-to-clouds analysis of this is independent of the process whereby the GM determined that response. That process could be a map-and-key one (let's say the GM is running a module which says that, at this point in the adventure, the warg riders attack) or it could be an AW/DW-type move (the player takes the high ground, which does not trigger any player-side move as per the if you do it, you do it principle, and so the GM makes a soft move - in this case Revealing an unwelcome truth).My knowledge of 5e D&D doesn't extend far beyond the Basic PDF and SRD, but I think I have at least a general sense of what you're referring to.I have two thoughts in response.First, I don't think the notion of "general handlers" takes us all that far. In my example of the plinth, for instance, there is no "general handler" - there is just the fictional notion of a sturdy stone barrier that will protect those standing on it from even a very strong wind gust beneath it, and the corresponding mechanical notion of which targets are in the AoE of the attack. Another example from my play today: a PC wanted to move over some difficult terrain and didn't have enough squares of movement - but because the difficult terrain consisted of stairs, the player could make an Acrobatics check to cover the distance without suffering the normal halving of movement rate/double square cost.These are not "general handlers" - rather, they are applications of the game rules having regard to the fiction. They rely upon the table (given the desirability of consensus) and especially the GM (given their role as adjudicator) having a good grasp of the system and its various moving parts and how they interact, and also upon the fiction being clear enough that we can all grasp what is happening in it.Second, some of the things you mention seem to me to involve rightward pointing arrows - eg I grab the Orc leads to make a roll as per the grapple rules - but some don't - eg the Battlemaster ability that causes fear (Menacing Strike) seems to me to be boxes-to-boxes, as the player doesn't actually have to do anything with or say anything about the fiction in order to use the ability. This contrasts, for instance, with speaking prayers in BW: the player actually has to speak a prayer, which is what the PC is saying in the fiction, in order to be entitled to make a Faith check to see if the prayer is answered. Upthread I also mentioned the BW trait Rapier Wit, which gives a bonus in a Duel of Wits manoeuvre provided that the player actually speaks a cutting bon mot; Vicious Mockery could have such a requirement, but to the best of my knowledge does not. Like Menacing Strike, its primarily boxes-to-boxes.I take the "dividing line" you're referring to to be the difference between a rightward pointing arrow and a boxes-to-boxes arrow?Baker characterises When your character attacks mine, roll dice as a rightward pointing arrow (see <a href="http://lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/thread/427" target="_blank">step 1 in Resolution System #1</a>). That's because something is changed in the fiction as a result of someone's narration (a participant who enjoys the appropriate authority declares that one character attacks another character) which then "activates" a rule that tells us to do some stuff with some cues (in this case, dice and to hit and defence numbers).But making a damage roll doesn't follow from someone establishing a change in the fiction: it is a direct consequence of getting a particular result on the attack roll. And the only change it mandates is a change in the hit point tally, which is also a change in the cues.This has nothing to do with "falling outside the written cases" - the rules for grappling, for menacing strike, for attacks in general, and for damage rolls and hit point adjustments are all written rules of 5e D&D, and most of them are found in prior editions too. The difference is the relationship between the rules, the cues and the fiction. When does a rule get activated by a change in the fiction? Does a rule - which may perhaps involve the consultation or manipulation of a cue - mandate a change in the fiction that in turn activates or feeds into a rule? Does a rule, that is activated by a cue, simply tell us to do something further with that or with some other cue?Different answers to these questions give us the different sorts of arrows, and corresponding box-and-cloud relationships, that Baker gives examples of in his blogs, and that I have also given examples of in my posts.</blockquote>

Verification