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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8653345" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think the value of pointing it out is that [USER=6795602]@FrogReaver[/USER]'s apparent concern that "story now" RPGing will produce implausible events is unwarranted.As you're probably aware, we can exclude infinitely many things from a range of infinitely many options and still have infinitely many options left. (Eg if there are N (= cardinal number of the set of natural numbers) options, each correlated to a natural number, and I exclude all the options correlated to the odd numbers, I still have N options left.)Now in the context of authorship of fiction I don't know if the number of possibilities is literally N, but for practical purposes it may as well be. Once the implausible options are excluded, I don't know what the literal number of possibilities left is, but for practical purposes it may as well be unlimited.As I have posted, and as [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER] posted also not far upthread, a requirement to "say what follows", without more, is nothing more than an instruction to play sincerely, to say sensible things, to no try and dice for beam weaponry in the duke's toilet (which is Luke Crane's example in the BW rulebook). Robin Laws also gives an example in the HeroQuest revised rulebook: just because a cowboy has Fast 20 while his horse has only Gallop 12 doesn't mean that the player of the cowboy can make a roll to try and outrun the horse! Assuming it is a reasonably sober western-themed game, even an average horse is faster than a fast cowboy. AbdulAlhazred has pointed to similar ideas of the "credibility test" in adjudicating Traveller: if it's a world of population 2 (ie somewhere between 30 and 300 people, or thereabouts), there are probably no PGMP-13s (ie portable plasma cannons) available even from the shadiest dealer.But none of this bears upon the issue of setting stakes and resolving conflicts. If (for whatever genre or prior-fiction related reason) it's not plausible that there would be dirt on this enemy in this safe, then play is not going to get to the point of a player declaring an action to crack the safe so as to find the dirt. But it's the adjudication of that action declaration that we've been discussing for the past several pages. And at least for my part, I've been discussing it under the premise that the action declaration makes sense and doesn't violate any credibility tests.Here's Campbell's post:I've pointed to a process in Classic Traveller: the player specifies what item their PC wants (guns, licences, dirt); the GM sets a throw required, modified by Streetwise skill; the player makes the throw, and if they succeed their PC has learned where to get the stuff. The key thing being that the outcome is not the PC learns what some or other NPC believes but rather the PC learns where to get the stuff.You've posted a procedure from 5e D&D, but it is not a procedure that results in the PC learning to get the stuff. It's a procedure for getting a NPC to tell you what they believe; but it doesn't settle anything about the truth of what they believe. That's a fundamental difference.Module B2 Keep on the Borderlands has yet another procedure: at the start of the campaign, the GM rolls on a rumour table and tells the players things their PCs have heard on the rumour mill. The table is deliberately set up so that some of those things are true and some are false; the players therefore have to try and puzzle through the rumours they receive, correlate them with other information they might obtain while exploring the Caves, and do their best with the conclusions that result.Each of these procedures is consistent with "say what follows", "resolve things playfully", "don't say implausible things". But each is very different. Which reinforces that "say what follows", "resolve playfully", "don't say implausible things" are not very tight constraints. They are features of all successful RPGing. But not all successful RPGing is the same in methods, principles or agenda.How do the players know that what the accountant has sincerely told their PCs is, in fact, true?To put it another way: interrogating the accountant is, in structural terms, no different from opening the safe. Task: We interrogate the accountant. Intent: We want to know if the dirt is in the safe. If task resolution is used, the characters can successfully interrogate the accountant, and have him sincerely ("truthfully") tell them there is no dirt in the safe, and yet it be the case that the dirt is in the safe, but the accountant just didn't know it (he didn't know about the false back of the safe with the dirt hidden behind it). Or the accountant can sincerely tell them that the dirt is in the safe and yet be wrong, because just this morning it got moved (the enemy being worried that the kidnapping of the accountant might reveal the location of the dirt).This goes back to <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=1361" target="_blank">the quote from Paul Czege</a> upthread:My personal inclination is to call the traditional method "scene extrapolation," because the details of the Point A of scenes initiated using the method are typically arrived at primarily by considering the physics of the game world, what has happened prior to the scene, and the unrevealed actions and aspirations of characters that only the GM knows about.Those unrevealed actions and aspirations - be they the accountant's ignorance of the false back of the safe, or the enemy's machinations in moving the dirt - are not excluded by the 5e social resolution system that you posted. And in fact, in my personal observation of D&D play (based on its rulebooks, its published adventures, and the way that people post about their play of the game) those unrevealed action and aspirations seem to play a fundamental role in whole swathes of D&D play, determining when conflicts and situations are resolved or not.The above listing of skills and game effects must necessarily be taken as a guide, and followed, altered or ignored as the actual situation dictates.The subject of the verbs must necessarily be followed, altered or ignored is the above listing of skills and game effects. In other words, the referee is expected to treat the listing of skills and how they work as a guide, accommodated to the actual situation.It doesn't say the referee can call for a check on Streetwise in accordance with the stated procedure and then ignore the result.</blockquote>

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