Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5867714" data-attributes="member: 42582">I have a personal theory about players who want to use skill checks as an alternative to engaging the fiction, rather than as a consequence of engaging the fiction. The theory is this: they don't like the scene that the GM has framed, and so want to use a skill check to reframe it.For example, GM says, You are standing at the entrance to a corridor". Player responds, "I check Trapfinding." What the player is really trying to do here is to reframe the scene as one in which there are no unknown/unobserved threats in the corridor. Thereby avoiding engaging the scene the GM has actually framed.Another example: GM says, "You see a menacing figure blocking your path." Player responds, "I check Diplomacy." What the player is really trying to do here is to reframe the scene as one in which there are no unfriendly NPCs blocking the way. Thereby, once again, avoiding engaging the scene the GM has actually framed.According to this theory, then, Trapfinding/Perception skills - at least when used in this non-fiction-engaging way - are not really intended as mechanics for resolving scenes involving hidden traps, but rather as a tool for reframing such scenes. Limited evidence in favour of this interpretation of the situation is that players who defend use of these skills complain about tedium/pixel-bitching, while players who criticise the use of these skills advocate playing the game by engaging the fiction as their preferred alternative.On this theory, also, Diplomacy skill - when used in this non-fiction-engaging way - is not intended for those players who want to resolve social situations, but rather for those players who don't enjoy social situations, and therefore want a way of reframing them away.More generally, then, on this theory some of these approaches to skill use are intended to allow players limited control over scene-framing as an alternative to relying on GMs to actually frame scenes that are interesting to their players. This might seem a bit weird, but makes more sense if you assume (i) that many GMs will be running modules with scenes that their players may or may not care for, and (ii) that many groups will include certain sorts of scenes (like potentially trapped corridors) not because they particularly care for them, but because they can't envisage playing the game without them (that's just what D&D is for them, even if they find bits of it boring).Anyway, this is just a theory, and I put it forward somewhat tentatively, but I do feel there is something to it. Personally, I would prefer a D&Dnext that tried to make these sorts of skills tools for engaging the fiction, rather than what are, in effect, metagame tools for reframing scenes. But that would require a system that also puts responsibility for framing decent scenes well-and-truly on the shoulders of the GM - and I don't think D&Dnext will do this, because (i) it wants to cater to sandboxing, which is a different technique for giving players some control over scene framing, and (ii) for reasons I don't really understand GM responsibility for scene-framing in 4e is widely scene as a negative rather than a positive ("my precious encounter"), and D&Dnext seems to be pulling back from many of these features of 4e.</blockquote>

Verification