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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7732314" data-attributes="member: 42582">Having someone describe something they made up to you isn't "observing", either first-hand or second-hand. It's listening to a piece of fiction.Here's a way to make the point concrete. I have visited the pyramids in Cairo. I can tell you that they are big. I can't tell you how big they are, because (a) I can't judge heights of structures particularly well and (b) I haven't got the height memorised from reading about it. Yet, from my report, you can know that there is some definite height that the pyramids are, because they are real existing things.But if I tell you that, in my gameworld, there are some pyarmaids, and they are big, there is no definite height that they are, because they're not really existing things. They're imaginary.The same is true of clouds. If I tell you that the sky was cloudy but not completely overcast today (not actually true where I am, but let's suppose it was) then there is some definite amount of cloud cover that occurred over the course of the day, although - from my remark - you can't tell what it was.But if I tell you, as a player in my game, that the sky is cloudy but not fully overcast, there is no definite amount of cloud cover that obtains. That's the nature of fiction. For the same reason, there is no definite length of Sherlock Holmes' left big toenail on the occasion of his first meeting with Dr Watson - whereas there is such a length for my left toenail the time I made my first post on ENworld, even though neither I nor anyone else knows what it was.What will happen "the vast majority of the time" is very variable across tables. I don't generally describe walls in a great deal of detail: it's not that interesting to me or my friends.Furthermore, it is possible to misjudge: a wall might look easier to climb than it is (eg there are visible holds, but they turn out to be unexpectedly slippery) or vice versa. Likewise, the amount of cloud might be just enough for the PCs' plan, but maybe not quite - the proof might be in the eating. And in a RPG, "the eating" generally means rolling the dice.A gameworld in which there are no unexpected factors, no surprises in the environment, and in which nothing exists which the GM has not described in advance, is going to be both (i) lacking in detail, and (ii) very very sparse. In a dungeon this can make sense (although not very much sense for dungeon walls, which might have surprising properties that become evident upon attempting to climb them); in any sort of moderately realistic or verisimilitudinous setting it makes no sense at all.Even if you use random charts to roll for the contents of rooms, markets etc not all options can be covered - eg Gygax's table in his DMG for "furnishings and appointments, general" includes urns but not vases, stools but not tuffets, etc. But is it really the case that there are no vases to be found in the city of Greyhawk just because Gygax neglected to put them on his chart?For the reasons I've given, what you say is just wrong. There's always the potential for a factor to be relevant which the GM doesn't describe - eg if the climbing is of a cliff, is there a small root poking out about halfway up which might provide a crucial handhold at a certain moment? Is the stone wedged in the crack next to the root going to give way if someone puts weight on it? (And human bodyweight, or halfling weight?)All those things matter to a climb, but the players don't know before they declare and the dice are rolled. If the check fails, what do you tell the player? Is every failed climb because the PC pulled a muscle? Or are some the result of the environment revealing properties of itself that weren't known when the attempt was commenced?This is just hyperbole. I've been RPGing for longer than you, and have played and GMed a wider range of games, from Classic Traveller and RQ through AD&D and 4e to Burning Wheel and Cortex+ Heroic. I don't need a lecture about what is and isn't roleplaying, and what is or isn't cheating.And this is silly. Playing "indie"-style, story now RPGs is nothing like collaborative storytelling.</blockquote>

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