I'm very good at it actually. It's just that with all of the variables, it's not possible for people to just pick up the small difference between a +3 and +5 here in the real world when it comes to social interactions, which is what we are talking about.
When you're dealing with a d20 system, any variable large enough to model is
significant. You're trying to tell me that you can't tell the difference between someone with (effectively) Charisma 14 and Charisma 18, after extensive interaction in a social context. I'm not saying you can instantly spot the stats of anyone walking down the street, but these are your fellow party members. Ross has a pretty good idea of what Chandler and Joey are capable of.
This is what the book says. Note the bolded portions.
You bolded the wrong part. The relevant bit is that DM's describe damage in different ways, which means everything after that is just one possible suggestion. Besides, how a DM describes damage to
your character is not necessarily the same as how they describe damage to a meaty beast. You're making far too many unfounded assumptions here.
Every year I read about people who were restrained and survived a slit throat because the attacker doesn't do it right. Also, you only roll when the outcome is in doubt.
Right. The outcome is in doubt, because we don't know how much damage the attack will deal, which means the roll is necessary. It's possible for someone to not die instantly, whether or not your character believes it is likely, and Hit Points are the metric by which we determine that. We don't even know if you'll hit successfully; you
could miss, because the rules for whether or not you hit are based on math in the book, and not your personal opinion.
If the creature has no chance of getting out of the paralyzation or binding, then the DM should just narrate the slit throat and have it done. It's an auto success. If the DM is making you roll, he's not engaging that rule properly.
You clearly don't understand the concept of what's required for automatic success. You just said that people have survived this, even in the real world! Now you expect the DM to implement a house rule going
against the rules which are clearly spelled out in the book. Pick a side!
Not one thing I have said involves bringing out of character knowledge into the game, so there is no metagaming involved. Your method on the other hand has PCs using player knowledge of the game numbers to choose how to act. You are the only one here involved with metagaming.
For one thing, you seem to be suffering under the belief that slitting someone's throat is automatically lethal, which is simply not a true fact about how the game world works. You're meta-gaming, based on your understanding of how the real world works! Even after admitting that you're wrong about how the real world works!
My characters, to contrast, are
only making their decisions based on things that they can observe within the game world. That's what
role-playing is all about.
