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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6243070" data-attributes="member: 42582">Agreed.In combat resolution, the minimal fictional positioning required is position. (The mechanics quite obviously don't care about the grittier details of fighting, like whether you swing high or low.)In non-combat resolution, the skill challenge chapter in the DMG certainly suggests that it should proceed as Lost Soul describes: GM states situation, player declares PC's action in fictional terms, a skill is then settled on and resolved, and the GM narrates consequence having regard to success or failure, which also then reframes things for the next check. If you follow this procedure you can't lose the fictional positioning, because the GM can't narrate/reframe if s/he doesn't know what the PC actually did in the fiction. And consider, for example, this on p 74:Sometimes, a player tells you, “I want to make a Diplomacy check to convince the duke that helping us is in his best interest.” That’s great—the player has told you what she’s doing and what skill she’s using to do it. Other times, a player will say, “I want to make a Diplomacy check.” In such a case, prompt the player to give more information about how the character is using that skill.But other aspects of the same chapter are not that helpful, though. For instance, it is not at all clear what the purpose is of the list of primary skills, or of the description of actions in the skill challenge examples. I've always interpreted these as &quot;GM notes&quot; comparable to tactical notes in a combat encounter - ie some ideas, worked out in advance, about how things might unfold if the players make some of the more obvious choices. But if they are interpreted more strongly, as something like a determinative menu, then of course the fictional positioning drops out and a bland railroad emerges instead.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6243070, member: 42582"] Agreed. In combat resolution, the minimal fictional positioning required is position. (The mechanics quite obviously don't care about the grittier details of fighting, like whether you swing high or low.) In non-combat resolution, the skill challenge chapter in the DMG certainly suggests that it should proceed as Lost Soul describes: GM states situation, player declares PC's action in fictional terms, a skill is then settled on and resolved, and the GM narrates consequence having regard to success or failure, which also then reframes things for the next check. If you follow this procedure you can't lose the fictional positioning, because the GM can't narrate/reframe if s/he doesn't know what the PC actually did in the fiction. And consider, for example, this on p 74: [indent]Sometimes, a player tells you, “I want to make a Diplomacy check to convince the duke that helping us is in his best interest.” That’s great—the player has told you what she’s doing and what skill she’s using to do it. Other times, a player will say, “I want to make a Diplomacy check.” In such a case, prompt the player to give more information about how the character is using that skill.[/indent] But other aspects of the same chapter are not that helpful, though. For instance, it is not at all clear what the purpose is of the list of primary skills, or of the description of actions in the skill challenge examples. I've always interpreted these as "GM notes" comparable to tactical notes in a combat encounter - ie some ideas, worked out in advance, about how things might unfold if the players make some of the more obvious choices. But if they are interpreted more strongly, as something like a determinative menu, then of course the fictional positioning drops out and a bland railroad emerges instead. [/QUOTE]

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