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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6247977" data-attributes="member: 42582">By "ingame causation" I mean extropalting consequences from known fictional states via application of the causal reasoning that operates within the fiction.Runequest and Classic Traveller are poster-children for systems where ingame causation is the primary constraint on, and guide to, resolution.Jump checks in 3E, and the comparable Athletic checks used to jump on the grid in 4e, are also examples of the phenomenon at the more local level.The resolution of a grapple check in 3E is another example, and one of the WotC designers - Monte Cook, maybe? - once posted expressly that grapple was designed on this sort of model.Hit point loss is an example of action resolution in which ingame causation plays little to no adjudicative role: we don't really know the prior state of the character's health, and determing damage taken and subtracting it from the hit point total doesn't tell us what new state is arrived at, except in certain cases where we know the character might be disabled (but not why - concussion? a numbed limb? something else?) or dead (but not why - decaptitated? pierced heart? brain damage?).A system that generalised the hp style of resolution across the whole game is HeroWars/Quest. I think skill challenges work better when used in this sort of way.</blockquote>