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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 6272722" data-attributes="member: 20323">Hah, thanks. 74? Is that a magic number?Actually, I've never really played FATE and I don't know what Stargazer is. Wait...does LoA stand for Legends of Anglerre? It's based on a comic series? I remember reading a review that made it sound fantastic but I know nothing about it. [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] I think mentioned that some of my ideas were like a "less creative version of FATE's keywords", so it sounds like something I should check out!I was having a conversation with some folks on the Google+ Dungeon World group and a guy mentioned that in D&D players have an incredible amount of "murder agency" compared to other parts of the game. I think this is related to your point about abstraction.I admitedly tend to get confused by conversations about "abstraction", since abstraction is a matter of degree and is happening all the time in a game. Even though combat seems to have become a matter of discrete attacks, in 2e and earlier an attack roll was meant to incorporate a series of parried blows, dodges, thrusts, and then a crucial moment where the attacker gets an opening. It was intended to be an abstraction.Or even something like Raise Dead could be seen as an abstraction. What happens during the casting time of, what is it, an hour? Well, the caster is intoning magic words and gesturing over the body. D&D makes the judgment call that players don't want to play thru Raise Dead (presumably because it isn't interesting). A game could just as easily zoom in the focus (reduce abstraction) with Raise Dead to entail some sort of negotiation with the deity or even a HeroQuest style journey into the underworld (physically or in astral form) to guide the departed character back to the land of the living, with associated risks.I tend to think control over the level of abstraction should be in the hands of group, weighted toward the GM having more control, but ultimately a conversation (of sorts). For example, a rogue player taking Get In Anywhere is saying "I want to be really good at infiltrating, but I still want to be able to play it out." The GM (thru rules thought out in advance) is essentially responding: "OK, but if you're doing part of the adventure by yourself we need to fast-forward that so we don't keep the other players waiting (or else run tandem challenges for a split party). So can we fast-forward now? We'll assume you succeeded, you can explain how, and then I'll get to introduce some complication...oh, and it will be you alone in the infiltration site until your allies get there on their own or with your help."</blockquote>

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