Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
ShortQuests -- Pocket Sized Adventures! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed for 1-2 game sessions.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="bsss" data-source="post: 9871535" data-attributes="member: 7054302">Yeah, I believe the same, and like your analysis of it. The system in use at the table defines a lot, in terms of what the game's stories will (or "should") treat in, at least to be effective uses of the system.That returns me to asking, what is an overreach of that system, when does a person at the table start to work outside the lines, at least in a way that doesn't come with table consent?In the vein of this question,...if the system is structured in a way where checks or defenses or social encounters can have an effect, is that not the system having a valid --- by the system being a participant on play --- opinion?We have been kind of oscillating, in my observation, between debating the problem in D&D-ish contexts and undefined game system absolutes, and maybe that latter approach is a fool's errand. That we can't speak to a valid approach without being specific, that the system's opinion is as important as the player's or the GM's (noting that of course, the system's opinion is the easiest to change). This post wraps that up in a bow, I feel:I see systems much like a contract, in the sense of "this, at least, is allowed". That Pendragon does social things way X or that D&D does them way Y is part of the agreement. Those may be unsatisfying ways, of course, but I think when we wonder about where agency lives and pick our lines to defend, we need to be more specific in the system contract in use. Pendragon allows the dice to test a character's vice directly, and D&D does not, yet D&D allows the dice in general defintions of skills to affect... someone. I think I know, but it doesn't seem like everyone here has had the same experiences as me. How much is that getting in the way for everyone, I don't know, but some of these situations being debated seem unmoored to me in a way that I have not been able to form an opinion.</blockquote>

Verification