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Message: <blockquote data-quote="joethelawyer" data-source="post: 4499176" data-attributes="member: 55764">here's how our group handles the skills/roleplaying divide.  we had to come to a compromise, balancing my interests in old school play, the guys who like 3rd edition as is, and the guy who plays dnd like his character is a magic card.  he utters not a single word the whole game.the group is composed of new players and old timers.  the new player doesnt say jack diddly.  doesnt roleplay. he doesnt get the concept i dont think.  to him the game is a magic game, his character's stats and abilities vs. others' stats and abilities.  we have one guy who would rolelay all day every day and never swing an axe, even though he is a cleric of the dwarven god of battle.  i am more like the dwarf than like the magic card game player guy, although my night isn't complete unless my wizard chucks a fireball at someone.my brother and i alternate dm'ing. he plays a samurai when he isn't dm'ing, and likes to roleplay.  basically for the roleplaying skills, we dont use most of them. to ask the dm if the dm is bluffing him and base it on a die roll is kinda dumb.  same with intimidate. if you want to intimidate someone the player has to stand up and say something badass-sounding.  same with the dm.  basically we killed off bluff, sense motive, intimidate, and innuendo.the dm takes into account the players who have knowledge skills, or diplomacy, or gather information, because sometimes the players dont have the ability to know that sort of info, whereas the characters would.if the players have some special knowledge of the game, like they memorized the monster manual, they are forced to put skill points into the "i've been reading the monster manual since 3rd grade" skill.the traditional thieves skills based on dex are done as written.i think the discussion though goes to feats and spells as well. by having detailed spell descriptions describing exactly what a spell does or doesnt do, you limit spell use creativity.  basically a lot of the old creative tricks i used to do with spells have been ruled out in 3rd ed through the detailed descriptions.as for feats, they took the place of creativity in combat.  we never used a grid in ad&d.  it was description of the battle through a narrative. is had to be described well, so all players understood what they could or couldnt do. players back then used to try and do cool moves.  jump off of here to stab them there, land on this, pushing it into them, while riding it down into the combat, etc.  i dont see so much of that anymore since the feats give a character a certain set of moves that they can do which will guarantee damage will be done, or more attacks will be gained. the other more creative stuff we used to do doesn't give such a guarantee.  why take a risk and do somehing that might not work, that no one ever heard of, when you can do old reliable cleave or manyshot?plus with a grid sometimes you cant do certain things.  what i mean is, with the older editions, a player would describe what he wanted to try, and if the dm had in his head a different setup to the combat scenario, but the player's move sounded cool as hell and would be the stuf you would talk about over a beer the next day if it worked, he would change the scenario in his head and allow the move. just base it on a dex or strength check or something.anyhow, thats my 2 cents for now.  thanks to the guys who told me what metagaming is.</blockquote>

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