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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 4911610" data-attributes="member: 22779">Pulling this particular quote out.No, I really can't.  You're telling me that the appearance of a dog in the street in a fantasy town is somehow wholesale creation and far less likely than the appearance of a crowbar (thanks for the clarification Ariosto - was going by memory) in a shed?Do you have a crowbar in your shed?  I know I don't.  I keep my crowbar with my tools - in my basement.  The only thing in my shed are gardening tools.  Not sure of the last time I used a crowbar while gardening.  Might find a crowbar in a garage, I suppose, but a shed?  Ok, I'm being way too pedantic here, but, I am making a point.  What you think of as reasonable and what someone else thinks is reasonable may be miles apart.  Many, many gaming sessions have devolved into acrimony on that alone.  I don't know about you, but, I've certainly had that argument more times than I care to count.The addition of a mechanic that allows either a chance or a simple statement from the player takes away that argument.  It makes the game go smoother, IME.  But, in either case, the player is trying to dictate setting elements that were not there.  The GM did not put a crowbar there, nor did he add in the dog.  Neither examples though are beyond belief.  A dog in a fantasy town?  Come on, be honest here.  That's easily as believable as finding a crowbar in a shed.Again, you're taking this to a far extreme.  I agree that if the players can dictate every single facet whenever they please, then yeah, that's probably not a role playing game.  Or at the very least, it's pretty far left field.  But, no game actually works like that.  (or again, very few do)  Most games allow you to make limited changes based on the genre (such as 007's Action Points which allow you to add in features that fit with the feel of the Bond movies) a limited number of times.It's a resource, same as anything else.Really, we're just going around in circles on this.  I'm going to sum up my position here and go back to lurking unless something really new comes up.  First, let me summarize how I understand your definition of role playing game:A role playing game is one where the players act out a specified role and cannot affect anything in the game world outside of that role.  Thus a wizard could have a greater effect on the setting (through a Wish spell for instance) but, any effect would be prescribed by the system.  If the game includes mechanics which allow players to affect the setting in some fashion outside of their pre-defined role, then it becomes a story telling game.(I hope I got that right. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> )Why I don't buy into this:1.  It defines role playing too narrowly.  It allows games like Hungry Hungry Hippos to be considered role playing games while excluding games like Spirit of the Century.2.  It ignores the fact that almost no rpg out there does not have some mechanism for a character to affect the setting.  For example, many games have Flaw mechanics of some sort.  Within those Flaw mechanics, you typically have an Enemy (again of some sort) Flaw.  If I take that, I, as the player, have now affected the setting by adding in an enemy that was not developed through play.  3.  There already exists perfectly good definitions of Role Playing Game which include pretty much everything that gamers consider to be rpg's.  There's nothing wrong with sub-dividing the RPG into various types.  That's fine.  But, I do not see the value in promoting a single type of RPG over all others.  It does nothing to clarify discussion.</blockquote>

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