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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 4512159" data-attributes="member: 18280">No; it is just more prescripted.When I was working on The Game of Rassilon, to create adventures in the Doctor Who universe, I had to devise a system where it was both possible to die, and where it was unlikely to die.  I gave the players several methods to prevent PC death....but not ultimate carte blanche.I could see a James Bond game working this way.  As with Doctor Who, you want the bad guys to be able to get the drop and James and capture him.  How else will he learn Goldfinger's plan?  And, when Goldfinger has Bond strapped to a table with a laser beam inching towards his crotch, you want the player to have to do something so James survives.  Something other than just choosing not to allow Bond to die.You can't have everything.  But, IMHO, you can do better than "survival-guaranteed". Sounds like a workable mechanic.  Not "survival-guaranteed", I note. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Also true when writing a novel.And, if you remove random chance, or remove opposition to getting the outcome you want, doesn't it become more like a novel, and give you less of the experience that only an RPG can give you?No, Mallus.  You said "Either you're willing to pretend fake dangers are real or you aren't. It's no more complicated than that."  But the need for dice and mechanics, the random chance and the opposition to your desires -- in effect, the "real" dangers presented by the system to thwart player will -- amply demonstrate that it is far more complicated than that.  If it were not, you could just tie a towel around your shoulders and pretend to fight imaginary monsters, and have the same thrill of victory."Story" is what happens after the fact.The events in an RPG generate a story.  The more that the story is generated prior to the events, the less meaning choices or events have.Survival-non-guaranteed allows for both story-telling heavy adventures and adventures with a real need to be careful.  It is, in fact, extremely easy to alter the danger levels in survival-non-guaranteed systems.  Hmmm......not sure how this is any different from AD&D 1e, with the possible exception that a stone is a more effective weapon in Torg?  I know of no adventure module, nor of any DM, who so fully catalogued the world that he could tell whether or not there was a stone lying around without relying on spur-of-the-moment fiat.  Would you be surprised in an AD&D game if you were in a bar fight, and asked if there was a mug around to conk your opponent with -- only to discover that there was one!  I wouldn't be.I think it is a false distinction.RC</blockquote>

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