Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5965445" data-attributes="member: 22779">Fair enough.&nbsp; But, you cannot play with mechanics you don't have.&nbsp; It's fairly easy, in a balanced system, to remove elements that you don't want to use.&nbsp; We do it all the time.&nbsp; How many groups do you think slavishly follow the diplomacy rules in 3e?&nbsp; IME, diplomacy gets used, sure, but, it's still heavily DM fiat and out and out free form that carries a lot of the interaction between PC's and NPC's.So, even though the mechanics for determining things are there, DM's are fairly free to ignore them, presuming that the group is groovy with that.&nbsp; OTOH, if the DM doesn't want to free form a particular interaction, perhaps its a fairly minor thing that he wants to skip over quickly in order to get to something more interesting to the rest of the group, for example, dickering about the price of a crossbow, he can let the dice mechanics determine the result and move on.In earlier editions, which lacked any sort of social mechanics, the DM is entirely free-forming all the time.What needs to be absolutely clear from the outset is that mechanics are merely tools to an end.&nbsp; If you don't want to use them, you don't have to.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 5965445, member: 22779"] Fair enough. But, you cannot play with mechanics you don't have. It's fairly easy, in a balanced system, to remove elements that you don't want to use. We do it all the time. How many groups do you think slavishly follow the diplomacy rules in 3e? IME, diplomacy gets used, sure, but, it's still heavily DM fiat and out and out free form that carries a lot of the interaction between PC's and NPC's. So, even though the mechanics for determining things are there, DM's are fairly free to ignore them, presuming that the group is groovy with that. OTOH, if the DM doesn't want to free form a particular interaction, perhaps its a fairly minor thing that he wants to skip over quickly in order to get to something more interesting to the rest of the group, for example, dickering about the price of a crossbow, he can let the dice mechanics determine the result and move on. In earlier editions, which lacked any sort of social mechanics, the DM is entirely free-forming all the time. What needs to be absolutely clear from the outset is that mechanics are merely tools to an end. If you don't want to use them, you don't have to. [/QUOTE]

Verification