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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8398140" data-attributes="member: 42582">[USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER], and following up on expertise and its relationship to fictional positioning and "storytelling".It's easy to see how an approach that starts with a free kriegsspiel-ish orientation can drift towards something different.Suppose that, in an actual free kriegsspiel scenario, some process (random roll; designer's stipulation; whatever) dictates that it is raining on the battlefield. Now the umpire is expected to use their knowledge of weather and terrain to determine the extent to which resultant mud bogs down the artillery.Imagine transposing that sort of scenario into RPG adjudication: somehow or other it is established that it is raining; the PCs want to get from A to B in a hurry; and the GM - like a free kriegsspiel referee - tells the players that as a result of the inclement weather it will take such-and-such a time to do so.Now let's say that one of the players is an experienced trekker, and responds Hang on, I've walked such-and-such a trail when it was pissing down for 6 hours and was carrying a 15 kg pack and it only took such-and-such a time for me; and my PC has a CON of 16! I don't know how that sort of insubordination was dealt with in the Prussian wargaming rooms; but in the context of a RPG the GM has an easy out: the rain is heavier, and the muddy soil likewise heavier, than anything you experienced on your trek. And now instead of the referee neutrally adjudicating the fiction, we've got the GM's adjudication establishing the fiction!How many tables went through something like the above process between 1974 and 1984?</blockquote>

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