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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Korgoth" data-source="post: 4500118" data-attributes="member: 49613">I have little interest in challenging the character. The character doesn't exist and isn't very interesting.The player... that's the guy who showed up at the table for a game. He's the one I'm going to challenge.The stats on the sheet don't represent the things that the player can represent. For example, a high Intelligence just means that the character picks up in-game skills quickly, etc. A high wisdom means that he has good willpower, empathy, etc. A high charisma means that you can sometimes get away with a gaffe, and your henchmen default to a higher loyalty level. You absolutely don't get to roll those to get out of playing the game: making tactical decisions, solving riddles/puzzles and knowing the right things to say.In fact, I can enumerate the things I expect the player to do:- make tactical decisions in combat- solve puzzles, riddles and problems- know the right things to say and say them well- come up with creative solutions to complications- manage available resources correctlyThe game is a challenge to these skills. If you don't know how to talk to other human beings, you can't hide in my D&D game! You have to learn how to talk to people to succeed. If you can't make reasonable tactical decisions, you may suffer in combat (or your underlings may suffer after you get them chewed up). If you can't solve a riddle or think your way past a trick... why are you dungeoneering again?Now, from the looks of it, 4E does some of this better than 3E. There's this terrible notion of 'skill challenges', which are just a dicefest, but at least the game explicitly challenges tactics and resource management.I'm just not interested in which player is going to have hot dice tonight. If I were, we could play Yahtzee or Farkle. I'd rather see who has hot brain cells tonight. And that means running their persona through that gauntlet of deadly weirdness called the dungeon.I have no problem requiring the player to use his real world knowledge. I don't care if Thorax the Barbarian has no knowledge of circuitry or magnetism. I care if you have that knowledge. As far as 'explaining' why Throax can have such flashes of insight... I don't know or care. Maybe he's an idiot savant or something. Thorax might not know such things, but he probably doesn't bathe or wipe his behind with paper, either. I still expect the player to do those things.</blockquote>

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