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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lackhand" data-source="post: 4089782" data-attributes="member: 36160">Derren: On the one hand yes, on the other hand no.D&D has always had an issue with skill systems -- we accept the abstraction of random rolls and loose definitions of actual occurrences in combat, because there is a large element of luck there and the point of the game is to kill bad people and take their awesome stuff (and tends to be played in large part by nonviolent dorkytypes who wouldn't know a Beretta from a Belt Sander. This does not mean that they're the only type that plays, though!).However, we tend to want to be able to play the skills directly (using our own knowledge), which interacts badly with the intelligence characteristics D&D characters have. This also interact badly with the definition of "roleplaying game"; in that my character knows more about skinning a deer than I do, more about courtly forms of speech than I do, and more about his home city than I do. However, I know more about how to drive than he does, more about the Java programming language than he does, and so on.This means that we're schizophrenic, and on the one hand want to allow characters' skills to substitute for players' skills, and on the other want to allow players' roleplaying to be be encouraged (which means rewarding characters and players for the players' skills).So: To escape from the city, you need to get outside the walls. Maybe the DM has a plan (there's a dungeon in the sewers OR a series of guards to bribe/sweettalk past OR an unmanned section of wall during a storm). Maybe the players want some agency. Maybe the players want to be able to contribute to the game, don't see the party mage as the wall-climbing type, or otherwise want to be able to play -- and roleplay their characters -- too.This lets them do that, and encourages a lot more complexity of individual action and roleplaying than previous editions.</blockquote>

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