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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8739002" data-attributes="member: 42582">How is the turn-by-turn character of D&D combat resolution possibly organic? It's hard to find a clearer example of artifice in RPG resolution frameworks.But does succeeding at the task take the player (and their PC) closer to achieving the desired goal/stakes? Or not? This is all under the authority of the GM. Which is the key difference from a skill challenge. (Or other closed-scene resolution.) I pick this up not far below.Nothing stops a GM deciding part way through a skill challenge that the PCs just succeed. Nor, as per my post upthread, does anything stop the players deciding that their PCs concede.My personal view, which is probably not surprising to those who have followed my posts in this thread, is that if the GM is inclined to decide part way through the skill challenge just to grant the PCs' success, then they are probably better off not using the skill challenge framework and rather just making things up in a more ad hoc fashion. Because this is exactly an example of decoupling success at the goal from success or failure at tasks.The PCs choosing to concede is a different matter: that's their prerogative (whether driven by resource concerns, a change of mind about the importance of what is at stake, or something else).The "world" doesn't exist. It's made up. The GM doesn't "elucidate" it. They stipulate it.This illustrates precisely the contrast between (on the one hand) closed scene resolution and (on the other) resolution where, in effect, the GM decides whether or not the PCs get into the castle by deciding the fiction, the consequences, what checks are called for at what difficulties, etc, in a more-or-less unconstrained fashion.It's nothing to do with trust. It's about how authority over the fiction is distributed. Given that the entirety of RPG play consists in resolving competing preferences as to how the shared fiction changes, it's not a surprise that the allocation of authority over who gets to decide is something that people care about.</blockquote>

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