Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 7196339" data-attributes="member: 6778044">So there's a few frequent misconceptions with regards to what I would call player engagement vs rules engagement.A player being able to win a debate doesn't go very far at my table for several reasons. First, I'm pretty good at it myself. More importantly, though, is I'm a lousy acting-style role-player. In particular, I can't do dialogue on the spot. So there won't be a debate between the character and the NPC at my table because I just can't do it.Role-playing does not equal acting, and even being able to narrate vs describe (even in broad terms) what you're attempting is quite different. As a player, your abilities and skills give you a framework for role-playing. So you have a player that's a born leader, but his character isn't. No problem, the player can still describe at length what they want to do, but the effectiveness is less than if they had a high charisma. Ideally, they will take those abilities into consideration when doing so, but I can also simply apply modifiers to the checks. It's not all that uncommon for a person to have a disconnect between how cool they think they are, and how cool they really are. There's no reason a character can't suffer from the same malady.A character who has no natural ability to debate, coerce, or whatever, can still describe what they want to do. Even if it's described in movie terms - "I want to do it like this scene from that movie," etc. All the need to do is get the idea across to me as to what they are attempting to do. In either case, I'll weigh their stated actions and their character's abilities and skills against those of the NPC, along with the NPC's personality, reaction to the PCs in general, mood, etc. I would encourage player to play "against type." That's part of the fun of role-playing. It's not important for the player of the flashy bard to be flashy, just that he ensures that his character is the one out front, making the conversation, etc. He doesn't have to act the part, he doesn't have to speak in the dialect of the character, but he will need to tell me what he's doing and frequently how he's doing it.The majority of the time, this will be measured (in my campaign) against their passive ability scores. If there's really a question whether the plan will work, then I'll ask for an ability check, modified as appropriate for the circumstances. I look at passive and potential ability scores in the situation (passive is 8 + modifiers in my campaign, potential is 20 + modifiers). Those two scores provide everything I need to know to make a ruling, and only when the ruling is really in question do I need to worry about an ability check.</blockquote>

Verification