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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8303555" data-attributes="member: 42582">I can't speak for [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER], but from my point of view this is stated at such a level of abstraction that I don't even know what it means, let alone whether or not I agree with it.In classic D&D, for instance, a standard measure of difficulty is level. In that sense, White Plume Mountain is more difficult than KotB. This is normally understood in terms of resources required for success, both depth of hit point resources (to handle physical punishment) and spells and similar magic available.But difficulty can also be measured in terms of ingenuity demanded - eg the "gelatinous cube in a pit" trap requires more ingenuity to resolve successfully than navigating around an open, unconcealed and empty pit in a corridor.There is no canonical way of measuring this second sort of difficulty in classic D&D, other than - say - setting ToH towards the more challenging end of the posited gradient of difficulty. Are you proposing some such canonical measure? Are you suggesting that having some such measure would assist us in understanding Gygaxian skilled play, or some other sort of RPGing?Even when its comes to 3E D&D, I'm not sure that one degenerate case supports a generalisation that the more skill a player has in one area of the game, the less they will likely need in another.And even if that were true for 3E (I'm not expert enough in that system to have an opinion), I don't think it generalises to other systems. For instance, I have a friend who is much more skilled than I am at improving his PC when playing Burning Wheel, by managing the way in which he establishes his dice pools for his declared actions. Thus his PC grows in ability more quickly than mine does. This doesn't led to him needing less skill in other parts of the game: in fact in many ways its orthogonal to the rest of the play of the game.The fact that something doesn't admit of mathematical demonstration doesn't mean that there is no constraint, that there is no better or worse adherence to principles and guidelines.What RPGs do you have experience with? From your posts I infer 3E and 5e D&D, and maybe some RuneQuest. Have you played or GMed AW, or DW or other PbtA system? BitD or other FitD systems? Buring Wheel? HeroWars or HeroQuest? Even 4e D&D?[USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER] posted that your posts seem to be introducing ambiguity, "making it impossible to discuss real differences between different modes of play". I feel that they would benefit from being grounded in reference to actual RPG systems and actual processes of play in those systems. This would also make it clearer what the evidence base is that you are relying on for your generalisations.</blockquote>

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