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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 8168151" data-attributes="member: 6785785">Okay, that helps me get a sense. Survival skill as a kind of means of gathering info or understanding the local situation. Some freeform narration from NPCs and the like.It honestly depends on the game for me. My 5E campaign is pretty loose. Mostly because the rules system is a bit of a mixed bag. But I’m lucky enough that my group and I have been playing together for years and so we understand each other, and so we kind of run the game the way that we want to. So there are plenty of rules that we change or ignore or handwave away.Now, having said that, I try to be aware of my procedures and how they impact players’ decisions, and so on. I try to remain consistent in my approach and I do utilize some best practices that I think help. All of my rolls are made in the open, all DCs are announced. I almost never call for a roll...I prefer that the player be the one to decide to act (I haven’t been able to quite eliminate this entirely). Besides those more rules focused things, we use the Backgrounds and the Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws a bit more significantly. A lot of those decisions are what we base play on. I also try as much as possible to use certain principles that are cited by PbtA and BitD....play to find out, ask questions and build on the answers, be a fan of the characters....that kind of stuff.With my Blades in the Dark games, I stick closer to the rules because they’re very tightly integrated and they’re designed with a clear intent which is coherent and consistent. They’re not the Frankenstein’s monster that 5E D&D kind of is....and they work really well.But I do think if we’re examining how we play, that understanding what we’re doing and why, and the impact that has on player decisions and their ability to fully realize the setting and their characters’ place in it, is, if not necessary, then at least beneficial.That’s pretty interesting. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard anyone do that before. That’s cool.I can sometimes be a bit soft on the characters in my D&D game. The players have grown quite attached to the group, and I suppose I have, too. So I get the idea of relying on the long distance player to kind of be tough on the characters.I’ve found that less necessary with Blades because the way the game works it gives the players strong means to prevent character death. It allows you as a GM to swing hard when you should. That can be harder to do in other games.I think that what I would worry about if I was to actually run 5E D&D for a group of players who were new to me is that I would struggle to do what the game actually expects the GM to do. It’s very GM centric....the players only understand what the GM tells them. The GM sets the scene and the stakes and the difficulty and likely the outcome. Several points where errors or miscommunications can be made that impact a player’s understanding, which then influences their choices.Is this ever something you worry about?</blockquote>

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