Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 7798889" data-attributes="member: 6779196">Well, if you think about the way many DMs use ability checks, where the player either declares intent to make a check or asks permission to do so, and the outcome of the check is used to determine, retroactively, what the character did in the fiction to achieve the result... That’s definitely an exercise in creativity! You have to creatively interpret what may have happened to produce the outcome the dice dictate occurred. What I don’t like about that play style is that it puts success and failure in the hands of the dice. When you ask that the character’s action be specified first and use checks when necessary to resolve uncertainty in the outcome, your own decisions, rather than the dice are the primary factor in determining success and failure.I think this is what people are trying to express distaste for when they bring up “player skill vs. character skill.” They don’t like that the player’s decisions are the primary factor. They would prefer that a combination of random chance and manipulation of probability based on character building decisions be the primary factors. Actually I would guess most of them would prefer that the order of importance in determining success be character building decisions > random chance > moment to moment decisions. Though I think the math of 5e results in greater importance on random chance in that style of play, unless you’re playing a rogue. Myself, I prefer the order be moment to moment decisions > character building decisions > random chance.</blockquote>

Verification