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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 8638970" data-attributes="member: 16586">[ATTACH=full]157291[/ATTACH]It took me awhile to realize that any player facing mechanic that requires interfacing with GM facing mechanics like defined monsters or NPC stat blocks fundamentally has no real teeth. At the end of the day those GM facing mechanics and assumed prep are a block box to players thus non-binding. This is especially true when the game instructs the GM to essentially ignore these mechanics and their prep when inconvenient. Not that there is no value to defined GM facing mechanics. Just that they are essentially nonbinding unless the GM takes an inordinate amount of discipline in applying them. Even then a lot of GM fiat is required to make representational mechanics flow into a game state. Even more so when we leave relatively constrained environments like dungeons or try to treat those dungeons as living breathing things. Not that GM fiat is bad. I run and play in a lot of games that are pretty much held together by GM glue because that's the only way you can have any sort of exploratory play.That fiat also does not have to be applied in an indiscriminate way. There are lots of disciplined ways to decide how the underlying setting and characters work.</blockquote>