thread: 2009-07-13 : How About Some Q and A
On 2009-07-14, Vincent wrote:
Mathieu: Absolutely. Please feel free.
Callan: That's one of the blog posts that isn't gelling, so thank you for asking.
Here's the thing. The fundamental mechanisms of roleplaying don't depend on apportionment of authority; they can't. A group can cheat, can act against their apportioned authority, and still be roleplaying. If I limit myself to examples where the group abides by their pre-agreed authority, then it looks like it's the authority that makes roleplaying work, not the ongoing, contingent assent.
I can give you more examples if you like.
Roger: I have a hard time imagining a rule for execution, say, that isn't a rule for the transition from initiation to execution.
"Actually, I guess RoT does have rules like 'The Rock doesn't care about the names of individuals' which is flat-out a rule about Intent."
Yep. That's how I figure the whole thing, in fact. The rule where the GM chooses 3 possible effects, then the player rolls to find out which one happens, that seems to me to be exactly like Rolemaster's crit tables. (Well, I guess that Rolemaster's crit tables collapse Execution and Effect together in a way that Rock of Tahamaat's rules don't, but that's fine.)
In most conventional rpgs, the basic roll falls between initiation and execution, with intent and initiation collapsed together (although sometimes wedged apart with "roll to resist fear") and execution and effect collapsed together (although sometimes wedged apart with "roll damage"). That said, there's a lot, lot, lot of diversity in how games' rules collapse or expand IIEE.
Everyone: I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that IIEE-as-such is Ron's invention. Sometimes I forget that not everyone is an old Forge-head who would already know that.
