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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Zardoz" data-source="post: 3950424" data-attributes="member: 704">I would say this statement is very inaccurate.What I do think is a more accurate characterization of the goal of the D&D rules is that they try to provide a rule for every action where a Player and Dm may disagree about the likelyhood of that actions success or failure.  I wont pretend that the rules that have been created are always good to have around, or that they even always make sense.  But for the most part, many of the rules that exist are quite reasonable, at least in the abstract.Going to the core of playing 'make believe', adding the mechanics of Dice and Armour class rules out arguments of "I shot you / no you didn't".  Adding HP rules out arguments about when someone is dead.Many of DM's do not like the addition of rules that they feel takes control of certain aspects of the game out of their hands.  The Diplomacy skill is a great example of such a rule.  However, I will contend that even having a broken diplomacy rule is better than having no rules of that sort at all.If you remove the diplomacy skill, than it falls to the DM to decide of the players are ever able to talk someone into doing something they might not be inclined to do.  For old school dungeon crawls, this is not a big deal.  But certain problems can crop up. - The players have a random encounter with some Ogres on their way to kill the Big Bad Guy and take his stuff.  The Dm wants to soften the players up before the big bad guy gets to them.  The players do not want to risk using spells that will alert the big bad guy near his fortress, and arrive at the idea of bribing the ogres to attack the big bad guys fortress, giving the players some cannon fodder, or at least a good distraciton.  The DM knows that if this plan succeeds even as a distraction, his climactic fight will be a push over.  Left solely to the DM's hands, this action will probably fail for reasons of 'providing a better overall game experience'. - The DM has set up a scenario where the players must infiltrate a heavily guarded enemy fortress and retrieve this weeks McGuffen.  The place has all sorts of magical wards and traps that make simply using Polymorph / Magic Jar / Scrying ineffective.  The DM has notes accounting for the players trying to get in by force, and for standard Rogue type stealth approach (lock DC's, patrol routes, time of day differences, etc).  The players instead opt for a social engineering approach using Disguise, Bluff, Diplomacy, and Forgery to get in.  Assuming success, the players are in a position to simply walk in, ask for the item, and have someone hand it to them.  About 8 hours of gaming is reduced to 30 minutes, and the DM's notes do not yet cover what happens next.  With the rules in place, the DM is more likely to anticipate this approach, and at the worst, can adjudicate it fairly.  Left to the DM's hands, this plan will almost certaintly fall apart at some point and change gears to 'entry by force'.  But what if the players chose to argue the point with the DM?Anything that gives me as the DM a means to avoid an argument with a player over the outcome of a given action is a good thing.END COMMUNICATION</blockquote>

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