EDIT: Regarding the general in the woods thing, with my unicorn cavalry story I'm not trying to alter the fiction without the DMs permission, I'm showing how your insistence on the story's implausibility is based on assumptions which may not be true. To invalidate another player's narration because it doesn't align with irrelevant historical realism is as much...or more...interfering with another player's roleplaying as anything you're accusing me of. Where in the D&D rules does it say that heavy cavalry are what you're envisioning? Or that forests...*all* forests, apparently...impose certain disadvantages on them? Sure, it may be realistic. But to insist that it applies in D&D is....house ruling.
First you say that you're not trying to alter fiction without the DM's permission, but then you say that failure to not adhere to your changes is invalidating your narration and interfering with your roleplaying. You can't have it both ways. As a player, you only have narrative ability of your own character -- everything else is the purview of either other players, for their characters, or the DM. Unless you've agreed ahead of time on what heavy cavalry is, or unless you have a DM that's agreed ahead of time to allow lots of authorship in support of narration, this doesn't work at all. The default is the real world, unless and until it's changed. And post hoc reasoning is poor reasoning.
But, let's address your charge of limiting roleplaying. The narration you favor has now locked in heavy cavalry as whatever you've described it as, meaning that everyone else now has to go with your narration because you've established this fact about the game world. Do you not see that your choice has now limited the roleplaying of others? You demand unlimited latitude in the name of not interfering with your roleplaying, but your roleplaying steps on the latitude of others. Your argument is a selfish one.
Re-read it. I said "I can imagine you..." Not, "In other words you are saying..." In a discussion where the trite phrase "words have meaning" keeps popping up, I'll posit that "imagine" does in fact have some meaning.
Heh, you just precisely described putting words in other people's mouths. I wasn't confused about what you were doing, this is exactly what I charged you with. Arguing against how you imagine others to be is creating strawmen and putting words in their mouths. I never made an argument about Tolkien -- you imagined that I would and then posted that I'm the type of person that would make this argument you imagined. Uncool, man. How about we agree that you should stop imagining me, yeah? Lots less creepy that way.
Then I'll ask you: do you think it's houseruling to allow an Oath Paladin to not describe his character as having angelic wings on his helm or shield?
Well, I think there's a lot of difference between a passage describing how 'many' choose to incorporate imagery and a definition of a game term, but YMMV.
Even if you take the "definition" of the words as a literal rule, it is so vaguely worded that my Eloelle description is within bounds. The official text does not offer any way to convert units, or guidance on how to measure. (Which by itself should suggest it's not a "rule".) And I am in fact using Int to "measure" her ability in those areas. Perhaps in a non-linear way, but it's measurement.
Yeah, it does. It says that 10-11 is human average. A 5 INT is below average.
That aside, I've been pretty clear that I'm okay with and have played in games where such descriptions are okay. My issue here has been solely that the narration you've chosen requires further ad hoc rulings to keep it valid and interacts poorly with the mechanics of domination, charm, and/or ZoT.
I agree with most of this, too. Except that the Eloelle/ZoT example doesn't interfere with mechanics because no mechanical outcomes are ever changed. Whether you narrate as her as too dumb to solve the Riddle, and then truthfully telling the evil Cleric and her suspicious friend that she doesn't know the answer, or you narrate it as she solves the answer and then deceives everyone about it, either way nobody (PC or NPC) ever finds out the answer to the Riddle. Which is the only mechanical outcome at stake in this story. If you allow Eloelle to narrate her failed Int check and then insist that Insight or ZoT extracts the answer to the Riddle you are creating a paradox, and letting her narration affect mechanics.
I've seen you make this argument over and over again, but it just rings hollow. The 'mechanics' of ZoT is that it prevents the character from speaking anything but the truth if they fail their saves. It's not a mechanical check against previous rolls, it's a check against what the character believes to be true. If, for instance, an INT roll is failed and the DM gives false information, the character believes the false information to be true and will be able to answer with that false information under a ZoT. If the character knows that information is false, they cannot. This goes directly to the LOL example, because LOL knows an answer she believes to be true, but also believes her patron doesn't want her to reveal it. If she fails her check against ZoT, she can either not answer at all, or must answer with the truth she believes. She can't say that her answer is mechanically correct because she failed her INT check because she truly believes she does know the answer.
ZoT's mechanics are really a roleplaying mechanic, not a die mechanic check. ZoT places restriction on how you're allowed to roleplay within it's actions. Charm and suggestion do the same - they restrict and constrain roleplaying. Charm has no mechanical outcome the way you keep describing mechanics -- it's a roleplaying requirement, not a dice mechanic. Under your arguments, a successful charm on a PC can be ignored entirely because it doesn't have any dice mechanics and the PC can narrate however they want. Frex, 'I know I failed that save against the Evil Sorcerer's charm, but don't worry, I'm only pretending to be his friend. In truth, my patron has protected me and I will betray the Evil Sorcerer at my first good opportunity!' According to you, since Charm doesn't affect any other die rolls, I could not only narrate that but I could also betray the Evil Sorcerer at any time without violating mechanics. If this example doesn't show you that your definition of mechanics is fatally flawed, I don't know what will.
Curiously, you define D&D as cooperative/adversarial narration, but then you seem to ascribe to the DM the powers of a sole author. Some of us play RPGs a bit differently, where players have a lot more authority to contribute to the fiction. That's not playing by different rules; it's a stylistic difference.
I most certainly did not. The DM has authorship of everything except the players. He can choose to delegate that however he wishes, and that's fine, but the baseline is that he's got everything except for the PCs. The rules do clearly lay out that the players can declare their actions but then the DM narrates the results. You're examples have the player do both the declarations and the narrations. I wonder what authorship the DM has in your games, as the very role seems somewhat superfluous.
Again, I didn't. Sorry it seems that way.
Yes, I understand that you fail to understand that imagining my arguments for me isn't putting words in my mouth, and that presenting your imaginings and then arguing against them as if you're arguing against me isn't building and knocking down strawmen, but it is. You should take a moment to step back and recognize that your 'imaginings' are insulting. If you're uncertain of something, ask. Imagining the answer has had you be, so far, wrong. And I'm pretty sure that I am the definitive authority on what I think, however you imagine things.
