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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8647109" data-attributes="member: 82106">[USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER]'s point is key though, where does 5e give you any other path besides the GM deciding when, where, how, and why something happens (outside of combat)? A player can declare an action, and the GM will decide "should it be a check." Now, this is based on certain principles, but many of the inputs to those principles are the GM's fiction, often unrevealed backstory. Furthermore, it is a very 'task oriented' system, so while the PC may pick the lock, the actual substantive outcome of doing so is almost always to refer back to some fiction that is outside the player's current view. The clue may or may not be in the drawer, GM decides. Nothing may be in the drawer at all, or successfully picking the lock may expend so much time that they fail to achieve their goal for some other reason. The GM may impose innumerable checks, each of which is a 'must pass'. Yes, presumably the basic agenda of play, whatever that is, probably falls in favor of "when the player rolls success a lot, the character's fortunes are good." However, that is nothing like assured. So, 5e really does rest FUNDAMENTALLY, in an ARCHITECTURAL SENSE on the GM to determine where things go next, in a fairly unconstrained way.By contrast in a TB2 game the constraints are much more significant. [USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER] was slightly in error, in the scenario I cited we DID get the oil, even though we failed the resources check, AS WELL AS a twist which directly attacked the "do lawful stuff" belief of one of the characters (and traded on some previously established facts to do so). The GM is supposed to present things which 'follow', and they must address character beliefs/creed/etc. Jakob could have made the whole situation a bunch more complicated by getting his enemy involved, but instead he chose to go against his own character trait and let the scummy fence guy off the hook (clearly not very legal). ALL TB2 play will be like this, at every turn. 5 minutes later we got another twist and it forced us to act to save our friend, which ended up giving one of the characters a condition, which is not catastrophic, but he'll be stuck with it at least until we camp, and each condition forbids you to use certain rules in your favor, so they are substantive gamist penalties.</blockquote>

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