I don't play D&D to play "pass the story stick" games. If a quarter to half of player declarations bypass the mechanics, it's not a game of D&D I want to play. If I want to play pass the story stick type games, I'll play those since, well, what's the point of having all these mechanics if I'm just going to ignore them half the time?
I feel the same way about “everything is a check.” If nothing I can think of or do impacts the outcome of the scenario, if the majority of situations are resolved by throwing dice at something until it goes away, then I do not feel my input matters and I do not feel I am playing a game in any meaningful way.
To me, the game is playing out the scenario, not playing out the mechanics.
I think this sentiment may inform how some people felt about 4E skill challenges. Some felt that it came down to just racking up points irrespective of what was going on in the game world. While some felt the process existed independently and you hang the in-game stuff on that structure.
That may be something we’re hovering around now. How do you feel about the process of navigating scenarios via the game’s mechanics versus how you feel about navigating scenarios with your own ideas (and using the process to resolve uncertainty as warranted)?
When I introduce a new player, or invite someone, I almost always hear “but I don’t know the rules/how to play.” But I take the rules on myself. You don’t need to know them to play - you just have to be able to imagine what your character might do when put in such a scenario.
I’ve never had any success teaching a 6, 7, or 8 year old how and when to make skill checks or how the action economy works. Usually I just ask them to describe what their character is doing instead and use the rules on my side of the screen. I still have them roll the d20 and all that as normal for my game, but I do the math myself and say like “roll an 8 or higher.”
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Your post also makes me consider the relationship between challenge and difficulty and how that intersects with the relationship between the player’s skill and the character’s skill.
IMO we have to consider these things together and not fall on one side or the other.
Let me explain: I believe challenge (distinct from difficulty) describes a situation in which there is an objective and an obstacle to completing that objective, that the outcome of the situation is not predetermined and is uncertain (could go either way, sideways, or wild), and that a player, by making decisions (for good or ill) can influence the outcome of the situation (for good or ill).
Hand-in-hand with that, I believe difficulty is a numeric measure of how hard (or easy) something is to accomplish.
A straightforward challenge might be difficult by virtue of the task itself (jump a 45’ gap). And a hard challenge might likewise contain many easy obstacles but still be daunting (defend Helm’s Deep from basic orcs for 2 days until Gandalf shows up with Reinforcements).
Then you have this idea like “but my character is better than I am” at whatever. Stronger, smarter, something. So they would be able to do these things even if I can’t. We let the strong characters roll to lift heavy gates, why not let the smart characters roll to overcome puzzles or riddles? Fair enough, right? But that’s where we need to look at these another way. The decision to lift the gate is a player decision but the actual lift is the character’s skill. The decision how to engage the puzzle belongs to the player while the intelligence of the character is matched against the difficulty of the riddle.
So I think I come down here: I write challenges for the players to overcome, but the numeric difficulty of those challenges is measured against the character’s’ skills.
Like above, I don’t concern the kids with the difficulty just the challenge. For adults it’s more of a mix. Adults have more patience and can get into difficulty in a way kids tend not to enjoy. Like mustard or hot sauce.
I’m pretty sure I have to reject “challenge the character not the player” or vice versa. Probably a proper scenario contains a challenge whose outcome is influenced by a player’s decisions and whose difficulties are surmounted by the character’s stats/rolls, whatever.
Surprise, bawylie finds another middle path!
... and so, as DM, if the player said their wizard wanted to pick a difficult lock, I'd probably tell the player (as [MENTION=6776133]Bawylie[/MENTION] said upthread): “your character knows this won’t work - you want to try something else?”
