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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8302905" data-attributes="member: 16814">I am directly disagreeing that what you're describing counts as OSR skilled play unless the things I've listed as necessary are present: clear, transparent decision process and sufficient cues to the player to facilitate manipulation of that process by the player.  These are things completely left out by your descriptions of play, so what you're talking about is just improv scenes where the GM can wield "no" whenever they want.  This lacks the critical necessity of being leverageable because it's a black box.So, no, adding "OSR" does not mean it gets a special definition of skilled play separate from everything else.  Especially when you're nailing it to an approach that is not definitional to OSR and that is shared in quite a number of other games not OSR at all. Now, that said, you can actually be very skilled at negotiating with your GM while acting as your character, zero arguments.  But skill is not skilled play, otherwise skill at being disruptive would also count as skilled play.  Skied play requires that the players leverage the system to achieve their goals.  There's no system to negotiating with the GM, nothing within the game system I can leverage, it's just how well can I entertain/manipulate/negotiate the outcome with the GM.  Now, of the GM has a clear decision process for this interaction, and those inputs are available to the players, then we're close to skilled play.  This isn't, however, what you're describing.  You're describing the GM deploying an entirely ad hoc approach, different for every interaction.Again, I'm not at all saying this is a bad thing -- it's a very popular approach to play, and it quite often used.  It's not skilled play, but that no statement on it's quality or use to any given table.  Skilled play is not a universal good or necessary goal.  I'm 100% fine with anyone telling me my current 5e game is not skilled play, because it isn't.</blockquote>

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