I'm mulling this one. What if GM says "These are the three outcomes we're interested in, agreed? Roll for it."
So you’re describing a situation where the player and GM have a discussion and and agree on what’s at stake before rolling? And I expect the player has some sense of the odds, as well?
Sounds pretty good to me!
I’t’s “Here’s the situation and how it will work. Do you want to proceed?” And then the player can decide if they want to or not. It’s up to them. Whatever the outcome may be, they’ve chosen this path and accepted the odds. The dice tell us how it goes.
Which is why it is, in my opinion, a bad rule that flies in the face of the rest of the presentation of the game.
I don’t know if I’d go quite that far, but that’s a perfectly fine opinion to have.
tell me where it says anything about supernatural, you are just inferring that based on how you read the rule
I don’t think it explicitly states it’s supernatural. That was more
@Micah Sweet ’s interpretation. I think the rule says how it works and can be interpreted that way if one is so inclined.
No, it doesn't. You get the feature because your family "wields significant political influence." This idea that D&D does, or should, support a hierarchy of aristocracy as something inherent to specific families is dangerously close to core supporting beliefs of racism. I'm not going there.
It says a lot more than “your family wields significant political influence”.
And if’s not requiring anyone adopt a view on the divine right of nobility other than that perhaps in some cultures, that was a belief.
Only if, and this is a big if, it MATTERS. If it doesn't matter, then what the player can do isn't relevant at all, because what he does doesn't matter.
I don’t know what you have in mind here about not mattering.
Not really. Trying to find obscure ways to say yes has been a staple in this thread, and saying no without at least a roll to succeed removes agency according to them. If there is always, or even almost always a chance for success, my agency is virtually negated. Nothing I do matters.
I wouldn’t say finding “obscure ways to say yes” is anything that’s been argued. There are perfectly reasonable ways to say yes. The ability says that it works. So it’s on the DM, with possible input from the players, to determine how.
I shared an actual example from play. Nothing obscure about it, I asked the player why it worked and they came up with something cool and unique to their character. It made the resolution of the situation dependent upon that specific character.
Like their choices mattered.
so you do not see a difference between a char being denied an audience and the player not being able to ‘wish’ a +1 sword into the world, so their char searching a cupboard can find it?
To me these are two completely different things and only the latter thwarted the player (not interested in discussing whether the player should even have been able to in the first place)
The former just means the player has to think of a different approach, same as if the char’s request were denied during the audience
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
I actually agree here.
I disagree here - What you are describing is a player that has agency to roll the dice! Nothing more. And that is certainly a type of agency but see below.
The outcome of "no" is no more up to the player when rolling dice than it is if the DM says "no'.
What is up to the player in both cases is making a decision on what action to try based on the information currently at hand. That's still agency. That the outcome may come out to be "no" doesn't make this no agency, any more than the dice may come up "no" makes that no agency.
But the player chooses to roll. The dice are random, but their outcome indicates some kind of odds. The player should ideally have a sense for the odds and the likely outcomes, and then can choose to try this way or perhaps consider another.
It’s not specifically about the outcome.
