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Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 6178705" data-attributes="member: 3192">AD&D uses reaction rolls and requires the DM to come up with most intelligent NPC behavior, that's to be done before play begins. Anything the players attempt that isn't covered by the rules, and the rules cover almost everything we can capably communicate to each other, is covered by the rule that it does occur. This may mean the referee can account for it within the possible variations of preset rules, or it's simply done with no connection to anything else. On my turn I speak, dance, sword fight, and balambazo. That last one the ref and I agree that we're not able to communicate on. I may have an idea of what it is, but no shared words or expressions between us allow me to to communicate it. So, by the rules it happens. But it doesn't effect anything else. Sort of like storytelling in other games, but most storytelling games still go under the illusion that players are "sharing" a story rather than each expressing one alone. (There is no shared mind space in the thought bubble above their heads. Each has their own.)It isn't about techniques for storytelling or artistic creation so much as mechanics for game play. Moldvay Basic, and probably some other early publications of D&D, certainly Holmes edition, were created under different design assumptions. Again, what's D&D and what's not is up to others. I'm suggesting the hobby was designed more for game play than for creative expression, more for action within a recognized pattern than turn taking for unrestricted by rules expressionism. Most rules are for multiverse creation. The portions of the game including maps / the game board. Your PC falls in a dungeon. Is the floor stone? water? If a character goes over a cliff, they may fall into an underground stream if it's on the map. Whether or not it breaks their fall depends on cliff height, what is keeping the stream hidden, and why it counts as underground. EDIT: Those are from my own design. Yours might be different.In the hobgoblin reaction roll modifiers are applied based upon other factors already in the game. A DM doesn't make them up on the spot in the same way the pieces behind the screen in Mastermind are not arbitrarily switched around whenever the ref feels like it. Of course, it's easiest to understand that die rolls are not narrative resolution mechanics, but set rules for relationship behavior. Determining the results of a particular instance in the unchanging rule of the odds.</blockquote>

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