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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4162161" data-attributes="member: 4937">I think that the player choice of difficulty modifies the base difficulty.I disagree.&nbsp; I think you can support different styles of play with a single ruleset, but generally dislike the notion of different rules sets within the same game system supporting who knows what.&nbsp; I think that adding incoherency to the rules greatly out weighs any additional ability to support narrativist play.&nbsp; So IMO, this is a step backward.This isn't even really my worry.&nbsp; I'm not really worried about gamist concerns like whether or not having even a single skill focus would largely invalidate a skill challenge.&nbsp; What I'm really worried about is the issue of causality.&nbsp; That is, can players predict what the set of likely outcomes an action are without the stakes being explicitly set?&nbsp; In my judgement, the described system has causality problems in that not touching the trap can cause it to blow up.&nbsp; In fact, merely talking about the trap can cause it to blow up, in some cases before the players even learn that there is a trap.&nbsp; Likewise, merely talking about the trap can physically disarm it.&nbsp; To a certain extent, because the outcomes are precircumscribed, what the players do or propose to do is hense irrelevant and the outcome doesn't have to procede logically from the propositions.&nbsp; Ultimately, no matter what they do or propose to do, some causality occurs that isn't directly caused by in game physics but rather by out of game mechanics.&nbsp; The logical connection is built back in as needed.&nbsp; I'm not a strict fortune at the end sort of player or referee, but not only does this tend to go too far for me, but it's jarring to have this 'fortune a good bit before the middle' in a game which tends towards 'fortune a good bit past the middle'.&nbsp; If I'm going to play a game where we figure out what the outcome is before we figure out the propositions that produced it, I'd like to have a coherent structure for it and not do one thing in one situation and one thing in another.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 4162161, member: 4937"] I think that the player choice of difficulty modifies the base difficulty. I disagree. I think you can support different styles of play with a single ruleset, but generally dislike the notion of different rules sets within the same game system supporting who knows what. I think that adding incoherency to the rules greatly out weighs any additional ability to support narrativist play. So IMO, this is a step backward. This isn't even really my worry. I'm not really worried about gamist concerns like whether or not having even a single skill focus would largely invalidate a skill challenge. What I'm really worried about is the issue of causality. That is, can players predict what the set of likely outcomes an action are without the stakes being explicitly set? In my judgement, the described system has causality problems in that not touching the trap can cause it to blow up. In fact, merely talking about the trap can cause it to blow up, in some cases before the players even learn that there is a trap. Likewise, merely talking about the trap can physically disarm it. To a certain extent, because the outcomes are precircumscribed, what the players do or propose to do is hense irrelevant and the outcome doesn't have to procede logically from the propositions. Ultimately, no matter what they do or propose to do, some causality occurs that isn't directly caused by in game physics but rather by out of game mechanics. The logical connection is built back in as needed. I'm not a strict fortune at the end sort of player or referee, but not only does this tend to go too far for me, but it's jarring to have this 'fortune a good bit before the middle' in a game which tends towards 'fortune a good bit past the middle'. If I'm going to play a game where we figure out what the outcome is before we figure out the propositions that produced it, I'd like to have a coherent structure for it and not do one thing in one situation and one thing in another. [/QUOTE]

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