#oh lort i think i rambled a lot idek if this is coherent

[honor-among-thieves]

My cleric was trying to free the bard from a kraken tentacle grapple and I wanted to use a huge Inflict Wounds to get the tentacle to release him, but it uses regular grapple rules so I had to rely on an Athletics check. I realize the situation is up-for-interpretation, but if I have to judge the fiction of D&D against other forms of storytelling, it feels silly to me. If I saw this in a show or book, it was established the character had powerful magic, and the solution was just to pull hard enough, I would think it was bad fiction. Wouldn't a sword be just as good at hacking a giant tentacle off? I think in PBtA/BitD the only thing that would prevent this from working is how nice the dice were being. In D&D it goes, "you cannot do this thing to get that result" (maybe your DM will let you, but it's not a part of the rules) and I'm left going, "but why?"

The setup and payoff of having my cleric slap a tentacle with so much necrotic damage it writhed or flinched (or BLEW UP) from the pain would be so satisfying, but I guess that would make grappling mechanically useless, wouldn't it?

That's actually weird, cause I've seen the fact that PbtA games are "fiction-first" sometimes used as shorthand for how they differ from traditional games (what would they be then? Mechanics first?) which is really weird to me because the way I've understood "fiction-first" is that you describe what your character does and the mechanics only jump in if your character attempts something worth using the mechanics for, which is... actually most RPGs?

Like, even D&D 5e presents this as the default mode of play! The GM describes the situation. You narrate what your character does. The GM may ask for a check if the outcome of your action is uncertain. Rinse and repeat.

I think the confusion arises from the fact that in spite of the text itself saying that that's how you're supposed to play the game for a lot of people it does end up as "I push the buttons on my character sheet." Leading with the mechanics and following with the fiction, instead of the other way around, which is what the game tells you to do. So, like, this is why you have "Can I roll a Charisma check?" instead of describing what your character says or does and then being prompted to roll a Charisma check.

(truth be told, D&D's fiction-first model does break down somewhat when you get to combat where there are so many discrete mechanical units to interact with those get used as shorthand. You don't want to describe your character's every attack to be followed with a "So you want to make the Attack action?" when you can just say "I would like to make the Attack action, if I may." But that is a very specific use case of D&D's mechanics where the game wants very granular results, so while everything is still grounded in the fiction the mechanics can take the lead for a moment.)

So all of this is to say... everyone has fiction-first play dip shit, it came with your fucking RPG.