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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9331123" data-attributes="member: 42582">How does it fundamentally matter?I mean, it changes the scenery. But how does the campaign happening in the Underdark fundamentally shape what is at stake, what the premises and their thematic resolutions are, etc?I'm not saying that there is no answer to the above - 4e has an answer, for instance - but I don't know what your answer is.At least from my point of view, the topic of this conversation is can the players establish what is at stake in a scene? and can they push a scene in a particular thematic direction?So if the GM has established fiction - eg an unshakeable tyrant, unswervingly loyal servitors, the PCs as "unknowns" to whom no one will listen, etc - then all that tells me is that the answer to my questions is "No". The players can't establish what is at stake in the scene - the GM will do that - and the players can't push the scene in a particular thematic direction - the GM has decided that's off the table.I also don't understand what this has to do with "they will always succeed". No one is talking about auto-success. The game I've repeatedly referenced - Apocalypse World, Burning Wheel, Torchbearer 2e, Prince Valiant, 4e D&D, Agon 2e, etc - all use dice to determine whether or not the PCs succeed at actions where meaningful things are at stake. My point about the post I linked to is that the GM is in control of stakes, theme and outcomes. Hence it is an example where the players do not contribute to those things. It is an example of the sort of RPGing whose existence you seemed to query.If the player can have their PCs only find sympathisers if the GM decides to introduce such NPCs into the fiction; if, more generally, the success of a declared action depends upon stuff the GM is imagining that is secret from the player; then we have GM-driven play.These, again, would be examples of the sort of RPGing whose existence you seemed to query, and that contrast with what I am describing and what I took [USER=6925338]@soviet[/USER] and [USER=6785785]@hawkeyefan[/USER] to be referring to in their posts upthread.The only person asserting, in this thread, that narrativist 5e D&D is impossible is you.But it's obviously harder than in Torchbearer. 5e D&D has no analogue to putting your life on the line. It has no analogue to channelling your Avenging Grudges Nature. The mechanical elements of combat resolution push the focus of play away from these thematically significant matters, into the question of who wins initiative, what's the AC, who has how many hp remaining - none of which are thematically significant matters. A (very rough) analogue in film would be to replace the actual Death Star duel between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan with a documentary describing the fencing manoeuvres and the physics of light-sabres: we might have an account of the same events, but we wouldn't have an emotionally-laden story.But [USER=7044566]@thefutilist[/USER] said nothing about "crunch", or combat, being an obstacle to narrativist play. What thefutilist said is thatAnd I've just given some reasons why it is hard to give combat thematic weight in 5e D&D. thefutilist also gave an example in post 718.My example was from Torchbearer: the mere fact that the player can choose to initiate a Drive Off conflict, or a Kill conflict, where only the latter puts death on the line, already changes the way in which combat can be given dramatic weight. Other features of the system - in particular, the way consequences are established - add to that. 5e doesn't have them. I mean, to the best of my understanding 5e doesn't even allow - in any remotely straightforward way - for a combat result in which the PC wins, but their magic blade is shattered.Here, as often seems to happen in these threads, we have a demonstration of ignorance of the actual systems used in games that permit the players to set stakes and that don't invite the GM to unilaterally determine consequences. As if the only options are either GM decides unilaterally or player authors unilaterally, without declaring an action for their PC.Whereas I've referred to actual mechanics from actual games: Streetwise from Classic Traveller (1977 - not a radical indie game!) and Circles from Burning Wheel and Torchbearer. Both work by the player declaring an action (roughly, I look around for such-and-such a sort of person) and then the GM setting a difficulty in accordance with the guidelines, and then the dice being rolled.Now the next response presumably will be The GM can just set a difficulty of impossible. To which my response is, If the GM ignores the rulebooks and just decides to unilaterally decide what is at stake and what the outcomes are, then sure. No rulebook can stop a table from playing a GM-driven RPG. I'm simply pointing out that alternatives are possible, and have been contemplated by RPGers for at least 47 years.</blockquote>

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