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The problem isn't the debate over differing views, that's interesting. The problem is that they arrived at those views with the implicit compel of a certain course of action for their characters, when the party dynamic in- and out-of-game is an immediate "out" for following that compel. It feels...

Like, in general (not in AnotherGuy's example above, where it's the orc rolling it)? I don't know, that's up to the GM. Maybe they're cool with one Persuasion check unraveling years of diplomacy or detente between tribes or whatever. That's not how I'd approach it, but it's their prerogative...

I agree that I don't like how this feels like "the dice decide" here, and there's also a meta-agency problem exposed there in that scenario that I think is hard to come to terms with: each member of the party individually sets a DC based on their stats, and I guess that means the orc's...

Oh for sure, I'm always just using the name as a shorthand. My favorite D&D-like is actually 13th Age (no coincidence I invoked it earlier), where there isn't a codified skill list at all, so all skill checks are the player describing what the character is doing or how they're approaching the...

Yeah, a form of the "fail forward" approach. I thought about bringing up fail forward ideas with bluff and sense motive problems, but it's kind of orthogonal to the debates we've had here. It's another way to go with it, though, so while we're here? Skill check to sense the lieutenant's motive...

Yeah, I didn't mean track as in having record of, I meant track as in to follow. Bad word choice. Morrus's Pendragon roll example sounds close. An example of what I hypothesized was a series of events in game where the players accumulated motes of truths and lies, all which their characters...

I should have worded that as "clearly this door is an impassable false door", because our point is that it's not like the player abandons all interest in seeing what's through the door. If I fail at Pick Lock, I know that the PC couldn't do it under those specific circumstances. Maybe with a bit...

And I feel like I'm an advocate for your 1st point but not your 2nd, so I think we have at least four takes in this very thread, haha. "Welp! Clearly this door is unopenable."

My latest post in the "railroading" thread got me thinking, is there a game that captures specifically what the player characters think? A lot of traditional games like D&D run on an action-reaction cycle where what the character thinks is relegated to being (hopefully) a motivation coloring...

To be fair to D&D and because this is germane to the debate, the bolded part is not how Sense Motive is written. Failing to make the skill check merely results in the lack of information, not a imposing need for the PC to believe what they are being told. In a contested scenario, all a Bluff...

Okay, sure, you can't guarantee the player(s) or their PC(s) will commit to doing something. They can lie about their future actions or intents. Of course. The context was not that, it was which side could be misled about their understanding of contents of the world. Generally speaking, the GM...

I mostly take "tricked" to mean that the GM can't be conned. They can be surprised, the system can give players bennies or whatever and give them narrative overrides, the GM can choose to call for a test or roll a die or flip a coin and have their string do something they didn't expect, the GM...

This is the flaw of treating the PCs and NPCs symmetrically, because you are right, the GM knows whether or not the PC is "lying". However, what the GM may not know or chooses to leave up to the dice is how the NPC will respond to that lie. The information ratio is uneven, a good system accounts...

I don't think it's remotely plausible that these "tools" are mutually exclusive, or one inherently better than the other.

Player agency is vital to the game but also delicate in times of interpretation. To preserve that agency, features that compel any kind of PC action should be used sparingly. As a way to allow the fiction to mean something to the gameplay while within that agency, the GM has considerable options...

In my opinion, this is the part that makes it not a "magic abilities have special privileges" reading: 1. a system can allow NPCs to have access to an Intimidate thing. 2. it can be magical or non-magical. 3. the effects of it must be defined in the rules. I find all of that agreeable. My fear...

As I was writing my reply, I realized this became a spectrum question for me. I don't find hyper-opinionated games very compelling, personally, and I don't think it's a worthy design goal unless you are coming in intending to make a game specifically in whatever particular niche. The reason I...

Clearly this approach has to have limits, though. If a monster has, say, a fear aura, as a player it is your agreement to acknowledge it and have your character act within those bounds if they are hit by it. You can't (within agreeable play) go "nah, I'm not terrified, so my character doesn't...

I can't recall seeing that opinion and I don't have the gumption to go back through 100 pages to find it, but to the degree that I can speak against it anyway, I agree with your posts on this point, that treating Insight, etc., as compelling further, specific action makes no sense in a game that...

I don't follow the context of what these hypotheticals mean for your argument. Can you explain your thought experiment better? Base premise, I would say there is an expectation that if the result of the game play results in something affecting the character, the player is at least expected to...