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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7382687" data-attributes="member: 29398">Sure sounds like one to me.An impossible*-in-the-fiction one, mind you, but still a declaration of an attempted action.* - and who's to say - maybe some trickster god happens to be watching and when the character flaps its arms, it's up up and away......The player meta-knows this but the PC in the fiction doesn't know it, and thus if one is to play in character as if one's player knowledge equals their PC's knowledge &quot;I go to the market to buy a holy sword&quot; becomes a perfectly valid - if perhaps naive - declaration of action...to which the DM goes through whatever motions she goes through and then narrates some version of &quot;You don't find one&quot;, and the game moves on.Ah...but remember the founding tenet of 5e is &quot;rulings, not rules&quot;, which opens up absolutely anything to be a possible declaration of attempted action and then expects the DM to rule on it.You're looking at this all backwards, I think.A player is never - NEVER! - bound by the rules in what she can state as an attempted action.The DM, however, IS bound by the rules (as amended by her own rulings and possibly as amended by the in-game situation) when determining what results from said declaration.&nbsp; This comes back to the fact that part of the DM's role is that of referee.Hence the player of a dumb-like-ox fighter is quite free to declare &quot;Trog see Fizban wave hands and make fire.&nbsp; Trog wave hands and make fire too.&nbsp; Trog burn them all!&quot;; and the DM is quite free to respond to this with some variant on &quot;Nothing happens&quot; without recourse to the dice.This is one of the great attractions of tabletop RPG play: a player is free to try anything, no matter how absurd; and it's down to the DM to adjudicate and say no.&nbsp; It's the one big advantage TTRPGs have over computer-based RPGs which have built-in limits on what players can attempt.Lan-&quot;and a fighter trying a wish every now and then is never wrong: who knows what that new magic ring might have in it&quot;-efan</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 7382687, member: 29398"] Sure sounds like one to me. An impossible*-in-the-fiction one, mind you, but still a declaration of an attempted action. * - and who's to say - maybe some trickster god happens to be watching and when the character flaps its arms, it's up up and away...... The player meta-knows this but the PC in the fiction doesn't know it, and thus if one is to play in character as if one's player knowledge equals their PC's knowledge "I go to the market to buy a holy sword" becomes a perfectly valid - if perhaps naive - declaration of action...to which the DM goes through whatever motions she goes through and then narrates some version of "You don't find one", and the game moves on. Ah...but remember the founding tenet of 5e is "rulings, not rules", which opens up absolutely anything to be a possible declaration of attempted action and then expects the DM to rule on it. You're looking at this all backwards, I think. A player is never - NEVER! - bound by the rules in what she can state as an attempted action. The DM, however, IS bound by the rules (as amended by her own rulings and possibly as amended by the in-game situation) when determining what results from said declaration. This comes back to the fact that part of the DM's role is that of referee. Hence the player of a dumb-like-ox fighter is quite free to declare "Trog see Fizban wave hands and make fire. Trog wave hands and make fire too. Trog burn them all!"; and the DM is quite free to respond to this with some variant on "Nothing happens" without recourse to the dice. This is one of the great attractions of tabletop RPG play: a player is free to try anything, no matter how absurd; and it's down to the DM to adjudicate and say no. It's the one big advantage TTRPGs have over computer-based RPGs which have built-in limits on what players can attempt. Lan-"and a fighter trying a wish every now and then is never wrong: who knows what that new magic ring might have in it"-efan [/QUOTE]

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