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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arial Black" data-source="post: 6695803" data-attributes="member: 6799649">I'm sorry I wasn't clear. I'm not saying, 'What I say is more right than what you say because I'm King of the Rules'. I'm saying that the rules say that combat takes place in Combat Rounds.It would have no value to debate the things DMs are allowed to use 'rule 0' for, because they can do whatever they like, until their players leave.I am discussing the actual rules. Fair enough. In that case the fighter would roll his Deception against the passive Insight of the mayor.Oh, it's quite possible that the mayor doesn't have any useful reaction.Sure. The DM can just tell you who wins every combat, instead of letting you roll dice and make your own decisions. If he does that, why would anyone want to play? At this point it's just "Magic Story Time". The only thing players have in this game is agency; the fact that they choose what they do and how they do it, with some idea of the odds. If the DM takes that away by just telling them the result of a conflict, giving them no chance to affect the result when the expectation is that the whole point of the game is that players do affect the result, then there is no point playing.Okay.My latest PC has become the mayor of a small village. He has great Insight skills to gauge the mood of the people, as well as great Cha skills, of course.One day, his friend Fred the 6th level fighter is somehow 'magicked' into assassinating my mayor PC. Did the fighter fail a save against this, or did the DM 'decide not to bother rolling' and just decide that Fred would 'obviously' fail any save so why bother rolling?So Fred gets close to me; and why not? He then says, 'Hey, pal!' and the DM decides I'm dead.Boy, that was fun!Alternatively, the DM could ask Fred to make a Deception check against my passive Insight. The DM might give him disadvantage if Fred is fighting against the control, or advantage if the magic is powerful. Either way, there shouldn't be no chance at all that I notice something wrong! That doesn't seem either reasonable, fair or fun. If there is a check and the result of that check means I'm surprised, so be it.If I'm surprised, I may be faster and if I have a useful reaction then I could use it. This would be denied to me under your DM.If I'm not surprised, he might be faster than me but I'd be able to use a reaction. This would be denied to me by your DM.I could be unsurprised and faster than Fred. I might have noticed something wrong. I might have the Alert feat, or a Weapon of Warning. I could then attack Fred (hopefully with something non-lethal). This would be denied to me by your DM.Basically, it's like Brazil playing San Marino at soccer; you may believe Brazil will win 10-0, but that's the game. What is not the game is the referee saying "I can't be bothered to play because it's obvious Brasil will win, so I'm just going to award the game to Brazil without a ball being kicked".I want to play the game, not be a helpless spectator while someone else tells me how I did.</blockquote>

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