Tony Vargas
Legend
Of course. I don't even have a swimming pool.Funny. I hope you jest.
The absurdity of having the success of a character's actions determined by the physical prowess of the player is obvious. Less obvious, but equally absurd is using the player's other talents or knowledge as a mechanism for task resolution.
Cruelty to animals aside, there's no logical difference between using a player's alligator-wrestling skills to resolve his character's battle with a dragon, and using the player's puzzle-solving skills to resolve his characters attempt to activate some ancient artifact. Both rely on the player's ability with an analogous task to resolve the character's success without reference to the characters abilities.Humour aside, there are quite legitimate ways of having the game challenge a player; none of them physical. Puzzles, riddles, etc. all challenge the player to a) think like the character and b) solve them. Social situations can similarly challenge players quite well.
The line between decision and resolution may not always be perfectly clear, but the player should be making the decisions, and the resolutions should be based on the abilities of the character, otherwise, why have character abilities?
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