Challenge the Players, Not the Characters' Stats

I should hope so.

Armor Class (AC) measures how hard it is for your enemies to land a significant blow on you with a weapon or a magical effect that works like a weapon.

Do people in your games worry about significant blows with a weapon being landed on the players?

You can see a gnoll archer crouching behind a rock wall, but the wall makes him more difficult to hit, because the wall gives him cover.

Can players in your games see a gnoll archer?

Close attacks include two basic categories of powers: weapon attacks that damage multiple enemies with one swing, and powers created from energy that flows directly from your body or an object you carry.

Have you seen players creating powers from energy that flows directly from their bodies?

If you are trying to move across an unstable surface that isn’t narrow, you instead fall prone in the square you started in.

People fall prone a lot at your table?

Whenever you use Insight, you’re making a best guess as to what you think a motive or attitude is or how truthful a target is being.

Why is there a skill for that, then? Players can guess whatever they like, without rolling a die!

You can use such a skill to remember a useful bit of information in its field of knowledge or to recognize a clue related to it.

How can the player remember something, unless the DM's already told him once before?

When you ride a creature, you gain access to any special mount abilities it confers to its rider.

My living room's too small for that sort of carry-on.

The result of your saving throw determines how close you are to death.

That's ominous!

Wouldn't all of these make more sense if, sometimes, the word 'you' in the PHB referred to the character instead of the player?

-Hyp.
 

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Does Acrobat have word count? :)

Cheers!

Assuming you mean Adobe, and not a circus performer... I do not know that the reader does.

But the full version does/should have the ability to convert/save to ASCII text or RTF.

From there there are quite a few programs that can count the instance of a single word.

Assuming also, that you have a legal copy of the PHB in Acrobat readable form. You probably do since you guys sell them as PDFs....(with bookmarks too I hear.)
 

Not sure how many characters per post you get, so since this is big I risked to err on the side of caution. Condense these two posts if they are back-to-back and need to be/can be.

Armor Class (AC) measures how hard it is for your enemies to land a significant blow on you with a weapon or a magical effect that works like a weapon.

Do people in your games worry about significant blows with a weapon being landed on the players?

Yes. Either form the DM or other players when they become annoying or disruptive.

You can see a gnoll archer crouching behind a rock wall, but the wall makes him more difficult to hit, because the wall gives him cover.

Can players in your games see a gnoll archer?

Harbinger or Underdark? One of those DDM sets if not the Chainmail or Pewter/lead/Raladium variants are clearly visible yes.

Close attacks include two basic categories of powers: weapon attacks that damage multiple enemies with one swing, and powers created from energy that flows directly from your body or an object you carry.

Have you seen players creating powers from energy that flows directly from their bodies?

Ever pissed a female gamer off? You don't have to see the energy to know and feel the heat and burning aimed in your direction.

If you are trying to move across an unstable surface that isn’t narrow, you instead fall prone in the square you started in.

People fall prone a lot at your table?

We love slap-schtick!

Whenever you use Insight, you’re making a best guess as to what you think a motive or attitude is or how truthful a target is being.

Why is there a skill for that, then? Players can guess whatever they like, without rolling a die!

I feel the same way. There are plenty of useless component in the game that are not needed other than that provided you have a decent DM and players.

You can use such a skill to remember a useful bit of information in its field of knowledge or to recognize a clue related to it.

How can the player remember something, unless the DM's already told him once before?

I would figure he went to school and had parents. Maybe read a book?

When you ride a creature, you gain access to any special mount abilities it confers to its rider.

My living room's too small for that sort of carry-on.

Don't have pets or kids, eh?

The result of your saving throw determines how close you are to death.

That's ominous!

In this day and age it is even all the more true than ever. ;)

Wouldn't all of these make more sense if, sometimes, the word 'you' in the PHB referred to the character instead of the player?

-Hyp.

Wouldn't they have made sense if the context of my previous posts were read rather than twisted?

Even better would have been to use proper grammar in the books so as not to confuse the reader [player] with the character?

The result of your saving throw determines how close you are to death.

Do the characters roll dice? Do the characters throw something when they are about to die? The players of some games may throw a fit, but the character does what?

I would suggest to proper word the phrase instead for the reader as per technical writing guidelines suggest.

The result of your saving throw determines how close your character is to death.

This properly addresses the reader with the proper context. It does not use the word "you" or instances of its other forms in different ways in the same sentence. When you make a substitution of another word, you should maintain the same substitution through your sentence rather than changing the words meaning midway through it.

"Your" indicates something belonging to the player now in both instances in the sentence, while before the variations of "you" was referring back and forth between the player and the character.

After all of this are you still really trying to dispute that you need only roll the proper skill checks to pass a skill challenge?
 

This properly addresses the reader with the proper context. It does not use the word "you" or instances of its other forms in different ways in the same sentence. When you make a substitution of another word, you should maintain the same substitution through your sentence rather than changing the words meaning midway through it.

Certainly. But that's not how they wrote the PHB.

"Your" indicates something belonging to the player now in both instances in the sentence, while before the variations of "you" was referring back and forth between the player and the character.

So let's apply the same transform to p179:
"It’s up to you to think of ways your character can use his skills to meet the challenges he faces."

"I roll Diplomacy!" is not a way your character can use his skill. It's the skill he's using, but it isn't the way he's using it.

Given that the PHB (despite your disapproval) conflates the player and his character into the word 'you' - sometimes even in the same sentence - this is what is stated by "It’s up to you to think of ways you can use your skills to meet the challenges you face."

After all of this are you still really trying to dispute that you need only roll the proper skill checks to pass a skill challenge?

Absolutely. You also need to think of ways you can use your skills to meet the challenges you face.

-Hyp.
 

  1. Not my faults, but theirs.
  2. I shouldn't have to guess their context. See response #1.
  3. Pick the correct skill to roll. That is how you use what is written on your character sheet.
 

Not my faults, but theirs.

I shouldn't have to guess their context. See response #1.

Whether you're willing to or not doesn't change that they didn't write "Roll a skill check to beat a skill challenge".

You need to think of ways to use your skills. You need to describe your actions and make checks.

If you really can't determine whether "you" refers to the player or the character, ask someone else at the table. It can't confuse everyone in the room.

After all... you just demonstrated that you could correctly parse the sentence about the death saving throws, despite their fiendish attempts to baffle you with pronouns!

Pick the correct skill to roll. That is how you use what is written on your character sheet.

That's how you make a skill check. It isn't ways to use your skills to meet the challenge, and it isn't describing your actions.

-Hyp.
 

Please then tell me the quantitative way to use skills in the game.

Then tell me how to judge if that skill is passed or failed without using skill checks?
 

Then tell me how to judge if that skill is passed or failed without using skill checks?

Where does "without using skill checks" come from?

p259 says "describe your actions and make checks".

The checks are necessary, but they aren't sufficient. A check by itself is meaningless, unless you've also described the action.

-Hyp.
 

GlaziusF said:
The DM can have an idea of the world which he has not revealed completely to the PCs. He knows where the bugbears keep their hostages. The players do not. If the players try to "put" the hostages somewhere other than where the DM knows they are, that still contradicts the DM.
In the Skill Challenge system, if I tell a story that the DM judges to overstep my "narrational authority", he doesn't allow it. This doesn't mean I do not dictate reality beyond what my PC is capable of. The system practically asks me to do so. And, of course, whenever you do so, you are stepping outside the role of your character. Whether you are role-playing the character or improvisationally acting the character, you the player are still stopping to tell the story. You cannot do both. The only thing that even comes close is when a PC casts a Wish spell, but even then the Referee must keep that action within the bounds of what is possible in the Wish spell rules. That's what modeling reality means. The character is doing this thing as directed by the Player (role-playing). You cannot "just say" the world is the way it is without playing God with it.

While a difference may exist for the actor, for the outside observer there is no difference between normal existence and theatre acting, aside from context. If an actor falls from the set onto the stage and breaks a leg, the outside observer only becomes aware that this is not acting but normal existence when the actor, or other actors, break context.
True, but I like to believe that for the sake of sanity we use speech forms which don't include all things as storytelling. Storytelling is almost always done after the fact. All other ways it can only be when one is portraying (acting) - telling the story of a character's personality. To think otherwise would be to accept "Wait a second, he was just acting!" is in every way identical to "Wait a second, he was just being!"

Collaborative storytelling runs into disputes when different storytellers have different visions of how the same story will go. There needs to be a disputation resolution mechanism in place. For improv this is "say 'yes'". For D&D, this is random chance coupled with the accepted mechanics.
I believe what you're talking about here is a lot of what passes for "Narrative Role-play" in the Indie circles. Of course, what you are really talking about is improvisational theatre acting. That the Indie community does not wish to make a distinction between improvisational acting and role-playing does not mean real world definitions get to changes because of their preferences.

"Disputation resolution mechanisms" are not the same as modeling a fictional reality. To confuse the two would be to say 1. the rules used for round robin storytelling are the same kinds of rules as 2. D&D's rules, whatever edition. Even if you go to bare bones TWERPS, what you have in RPGs are mechanics for modeling reality not ones for resolving narrative disputations between speakers.

Seriously, go back to the blind people playing Monopoly. The game is modeling a kind of reality (but one not broad enough to count as role-play). Do you really believe the rules of that game are narrative disputation resolution rules? Wouldn't all games' rules count as such then? This gets back to the inaccurate "not story-like enough" objection where stories have to be about "people" and "worlds" to count as collaborative storytelling.

And so Tigger found himself stranded in the upper branches of the tree. It was very, very cold, and very lonely.

"Hey! Who's that talkin' up there?"

Who, me?

"Yeah, you!"

Why, I'm the narrator.

"Oh, really. Well, narrate me down from here!"
That's funny. You made a character named "narrator" and put him in your story. Isn't it odd how that "narrator" character hasn't kept on posting the story without your help?
 

What if I role-play my character telling a story? (^_^)
You're right. :) In another thread about the difference of role-playing and storytelling I made a point of giving this one exception. Nice catch.




BIG EDIT:
Here's a funny story on how "story" might be confused with role-playing as so many are bringing up objections to stories not happening in their game.

Playing Baseball is not telling a story. It is a game testing one's ability to play Baseball, to follow the rules to win. Agreed?

But what about when a major leaguer dresses up as Mickey Mantle and improvisationally acts as if he were that guy? All the while playing a real Baseball game?

Now let's add on the telling of a story while in character, like "I remember when I homered one out of Fenway and into the parking lot, back when...."

True, this is a bit hard to imagine happening in the Majors, but I bet plenty of kids do it in sandlot.

The question is: Is Baseball actually a story game because,
1. You can improvisationally act as another person while playing the game?
and/or
2. You can tell stories while playing the game (whether you're engaged in 1. or not)

Of course the answer is no. This isn't theatre. You have to be good enough to hit homeruns yourself. Pretending to be Mickey Mantle isn't going to help you with that (well probably it won't ;) ) Just as in role-playing, the challenge is in the doing of the thing. Where as in acting, the challenge is in the portrayal. Both are fun, just in different ways.
 
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