iserith
Magic Wordsmith
[MENTION=6919838]5ekyu[/MENTION] raises some good points in his post - as well as that comparison to combat.
Having said that, there are quite a few players that still enjoy an old tomb of horrors-like styled method of roleplaying where the players' words matter greatly.
Some of us (presumably many) prefer the grey area in between. And some of us can expertly run separate styled games all of which would be discussed at session 0.
I'm easy enough (starved) to enjoy both styles.
The DMG (and I) recommend the "middle path." (Or at least, the DMG suggests it has no downsides compared to other approaches. See DMG, pp. 236-237) In the "middle path," the DM balances the use of dice against deciding on success. By doing so, the players are incentivized to pay attention to the game world while also relying on their character mechanics, when necessary. Chiefly that's by choosing to engage in tasks for which the character has the best chance of success if the player has to roll. If my character is good at finding traps, I'm going to be the guy who is really paying attention to the DM's description of the environment for clues that there is a trap, then putting my character in the best position to find them in hopes that I don't have to roll. But if I do have to roll, at least I've built my character to be pretty good at it and perhaps I have advantage or a lower DC due to my fictional positioning.
The other methods are relying on die rolls for almost everything or to use the dice as rarely as possible. In the former approach, the DMG says there's a risk that roleplaying diminishes because the players think their dice rolls, rather than their choices, determine success. In such a game, if my character is good at finding traps and the DM isn't into telegraphing, I'm going to just spam rolls at anything that might have a trap and hope I get lucky. In an approach that uses the dice as rarely as possible, the DMG says that, while this approach rewards creativity, no DM is completely neutral, favoring some players or approaches or directions for the game. Also, the game can slow down if the DM is hung up on the players describing the "One True Solution" to the challenge to the exclusion of all others. If I'm in a game like this, I'm going to be bored because I'm actually pretty bad at puzzles and coming up with the one solution that works to overcome the challenge is going to take me a long time (if I ever succeed at all).
Here's the thing though: I (and others, no doubt) practice the "middle path." But those who are debating me (or us, as the case may be) are asserting that we're trying to ignore the dice (as the DMG puts it). You can see it in the assertions they make ("gaming the DM," "magic words," etc.) and the examples they use. Which is not true, from the DM's perspective. While the players should be trying to avoid rolling as much as possible (since the d20 is so unreliable), the DM is balancing out the dice and calls for automatic success over time, chiefly because there are factors in the environment that cannot be controlled by the PCs and that introduce uncertainty as to the outcome of a task and a meaningful consequence of failure - which is when we call for a roll.
All that to say, what you're seeing in this thread are strawman arguments and statements of preference against approaches that myself and others do not employ. So one wonders what they're arguing about at all.