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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 7797721" data-attributes="member: 6779196">I was giving a general definition of role playing, not necessarily specific to D&D, or even tabletop role playing games.I disagree. Many forms of role playing have no such requirement, and in fact there are forms of role playing (for instance, role playing as part of therapy, or as an educational tool) where attempting to isolate the knowledge of the person playing the role from the knowledge of the character would be counter-productive.What inherent value does the “integrity” of role playing have? Or, if you prefer, what ill comes from violating that integrity?It’s only cheating if it is in violation of the rules. Which it may well be in your D&D game. It is in many people’s D&D games. But I’ve found that by permitting it in my D&D games, the experience has only improved. Your mileage, as always, may vary.Again, what harm comes from a DM not doing so?See, I as a DM wouldn’t do that. I don’t call for checks except in response to actions described by the player. So, I wouldn’t just say, “make a Stealth check” when the player passed the third door. I would give them that Metal Gear exclamation point first. Maybe I describe a “what was that?” Coming from the other side of the door, and then ask the player what they do. That insures I’m asking them what they do about something, and the check, if needed, resolves what they do about it.It may be realistic, but realism isn’t my goal. My goal is to create opportunities for the players to imagine themselves as other people, in a fictional scenario, and make decisions as they imagine those people would do in that scenario. Telling them to make Stealth checks as they pass doors that enemies may or may not be hiding behind to preserve a sense of role playing integrity does not, in my opinion, serve that goal. Telegraphing that they might be in danger of being detected and asking them what their character does about that serves that goal very well (again, in my opinion.)</blockquote>

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