NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Stalker0" data-source="post: 5611810" data-attributes="member: 5889">At its core, bypassing all challenges in roleplaying game requires you to "press the correct series of buttons". However, the trick to being a good DM is the following:1) Making sure the players have some clue as to which buttons to press.2) Show some flexibility when the situation calls for it, especially for good ideas.In the example I mentioned, if the guard had simply said "I can't let you in"....then that's just frustrating.But when the guard says "The BBEG said to let no one but himself in"....then that gives the player a clue...something to work with.Perhaps he could come back disguised as the BBEG, or forge orders from him allowing you to let him in....or perhaps intimidating the guard. All of these might be paths that work....but that doesn't mean all of them should work in all cases.However, the problem that sometimes arrises with skills like bluff....which I would say is the origin of this whole thread....is when that skill becomes the "master key" that unlocks any challenge.When your bluff is so good you can bypass even very hard DCS (doable in 4e, actually very easy in 3e), then the tendency is to let a player talk his way through any situation (the master button). At that point, the context of the situation becomes meaningless. It doesn't matter what the guard's orders are, or what his loyalty is, or the penalty for letting someone in....if he can be hammered down with bluff it simply doesn't matter. That is the legitimate danger of giving social skills too much power...and I think its something to be aware of when determining how social skills will work in a particular game.</blockquote>

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