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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6301093" data-attributes="member: 42582">They identify your preferred way to do so. They are not the only way to do so. I know, because I'm doing it a different way.I care about both those things, and I take a degree of umbrage at your implication to the contrary.I use the rules in a way that I prefer, which does not compromise the consistency or objectivity of the gameworld (to the extent that any imaginary, non-existent thing can be objective).Says who? In my game there is no such fact.There is a fact, within the gameworld, that on some occasion or other, Joe withstood withering bowfire from some orcs and survived. It does not follow that there is any such modal fact as that he could do so again.There is a fact that does not obtain within the gameworld, but that does obtain in the real world, about the number written in the hp box on the PC sheet for Joe, and about the dice notation in the damage entry for orcs in the Monster Manual. But those are not facts about the gameworld.There's a lot of things I don't know how to do. It doesn't mean they can't be done. It just means I have to ask someone who does do it how it is that they do it.I assume that, when the players in your game tell you that their PCs examine a room, you don't describe every dust mote, every flake of paint, every drop of water, every minute insect hidden in the folds of the rugs and tapestries. I make this assumption because I have played under many GMs, and read many adventure modules, and have never encountered a GM or a module that goes into this level of detail.If the room is a rich merchant's house, do you describe every article of clothing in the dressing room? Every piece of crockery, and its particular glaze and place of manufacture? Every facet in every jewel? For the same reasons as I gave, I am assuming that you don't.Hence, it is not literally true that you know ahead of time all that is in the room. At best, you know everything that you think might be salient to your players.Then I guess they didn't notice it.For instance, what if - had you told them the merchant's crockery had a cobalt blue glaze - they would have decided to go to where the crockery came from in order to start up a cobalt mine? By not telling them that, and simply telling them "You see kitchen shelves with typical accoutrements of a wealthy merchant of this town", you have deprived them of the opportunity to make that choice.Yet the game goes on.I'll start with a quote from Gygax's DMG, p 61:One-minute rounds are devised to offer the maximum of choice with a minimum of complication. . . The system assumes much activity during the course of each round. Envision, if you will, a fencing, boxing or karate match. During the course of one minute of such competition there are numerous attacks which are unsuccessful, feints, manoeuvring and so forth. During a one-minute melee round many attacks are made, but some are mere feints, while some are blocked or parried. One, or possibly several, have the chance to actually score damage. For such chances, the dice are rolled . . .Gygax is taking it for granted that the participants in the game will fill in the details of the one-minute round as makes sense. He is certainly not envisioning a bizarre stop-motion world.Ron Edwards explains <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/21/" target="_blank">here</a> what the procedure is for filling in those details in this sort of play:Exploration overall is negotiated in a casual fashion through ongoing dialogue, using system for input (which may be constraining), rather than explicitly delivered by system per seBy "Exploration" Edwards means "filling in the details of what happens in the shared fiction". It is negotiated between the participants - in D&D, the GM normally has first go and ultimate say, but the player is allowed to contribute to (especially if s/he has a preferred conception of what his/her character which is different from what the GM suggests). It is done in a casual fashion - "making stuff up off the top of your head" if you like. For instance, if the player's attack roll results in his/her PC killing a hill giant, the GM might describe a feint followed by a mighty blow that fells the giant. The system delivers input which constrains the filling in of the details - for instance, if the giant is reduced to 0 hp then however the GM describes it, it has to involve the PC felling the giant - but the system doesn't itself deliver all the detail (for instance, it doesn't tell us whether or not the felling blow was preceded by a successful feint).Describing the result of a successful saving throw is much the same. Of course contradiction has to be avoided - so if the PCs have already inspected the chain and found it to be unbreakable, the GM is not going to narrate the saving throw as the result of a weakness in the chain. Instead (as per the DMG pp 80-81) the GM might describe the fighter finding "a crevice in which to shield his or her body". Because the GM's description will never have been total, there will always be something that can be said to explain the saving throw.As long as contradiction is avoided, the gameworld will be consistent. And given that it is not being created by the thoughts of any of its inhabitants, but exists independently of those inhabitants, it is objective. Of course it is not independent of the GM and the players. But nor is it on your approach - the GM authors the gameworld in advance. The difference between your approach and my approach is that on my approach there is potentially more in the gameworld than the GM has dreamed of. I regard that as a virtue. You regard that as undesirable. This is a difference of taste, but has no bearing on whether or not the gameworld is objective and consistent.<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/tabletop-gaming/299440-exploration-scenarios-my-experiment-last-sunday.html" target="_blank">Here</a> <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/tabletop-gaming/301282-actual-play-examples-balance-between-fiction-mechanics.html" target="_blank">are</a> <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-pathfinder/308093-combatless-sessions.html" target="_blank">some</a> <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-pathfinder/309950-actual-play-my-first-social-only-session.html" target="_blank">links</a> <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-pathfinder/312367-actual-play-another-combat-free-session-intra-party-dyanmics.html" target="_blank">to</a> <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/tabletop-gaming/313724-actual-play-pcs-successfully-negotiated-kas.html" target="_blank">some</a> <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-pathfinder/319168-pcs-defeat-calastryx-get-up-some-other-hijinks.html" target="_blank">actual</a> <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-pathfinder/319889-doppelganger-mayhem-long-lead-up.html" target="_blank">play</a> <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-pathfinder/324018-wizard-pc-dies-returns-invoker.html" target="_blank">reports</a> <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?324955-Whelm-reforged-as-Overwhelm- and-other-recent-skill-challenges" target="_blank">that</a> <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-pathfinder/330383-underdark-adventure-demons-beholders-elementals-hydra.html" target="_blank">I</a> <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/6039139-post73.html" target="_blank">have</a> <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?332755-PCs-bring-destruction-down-upon-the-duergar" target="_blank">posted</a> <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?333704-4th-edition-The-fantastic-game-that-everyone-hated/page17&p=6076061&viewfull=1#post6076061" target="_blank">from</a> <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?335974-I-ran-my-first-Epic-session-last-Sunday" target="_blank">my</a> <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?335974-I-ran-my-first-Epic-session-last-Sunday/page2&p=6125246&viewfull=1#post6125246" target="_blank">own</a> <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?335974-I-ran-my-first-Epic-session-last-Sunday/page2&p=6140228&viewfull=1#post6140228" target="_blank">4e</a> <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?340383-PCs-kill-Ometh-leading-to-open-season-on-the-Raven-Queen-s-name" target="_blank">Dungeons</a> <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?342615-PCs-defeat-Miska-but-relinquish-the-Crystal-of-the-Ebon-Flame" target="_blank">&</a> <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?350416-Mayhem-in-the-Shrine-of-the-Kuo-Toa" target="_blank">Dragons</a> <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?353496-First-time-godslayers-PCs-kill-Torog" target="_blank">game</a>.. As you will be able to see if you read them, I use the techniques I have described in this thread. Can you tell me where the inconsistency is in my gameworld?</blockquote>

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