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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Runestar" data-source="post: 4749869" data-attributes="member: 72317">Let me first say that I am not entirely sure what the OP is trying to drive at, so do forgive me if my post is off-topic. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I would say that the rules are there exactly to put a lid on how "abusive" and "ridiculous" roleplaying can get. In the interest of "fairness", some aspects of gameplay should never be left to roleplaying alone to determine.To give an example, lets say a 3ed party is currently fighting a dragon, who blasts them all with his breath weapon. The rogue makes his reflex save and manages to escape being hurt thanks to evasion. His achievement was made solely on merit of his superior stats. In no way would I allow such an achievement to be merely roleplayed / narrated out without being backed up by the relevant stats/checks. In other words, it does not matter to me how elaborately or vividly you describe how your character might have reacted to the dragon's breath weapon and escaped harm. If you ultimately fail your reflex save or did not possess evasion or both, you are still going to take damage. You can however, describe in detail how your character tried to evade the breath but failed. In the end, what you narrate must fit in with the mechanical outcome.But for the rogue who made his reflex save, he is certainly free to roleplay that aspect to his heart's content. He succeeded after all. In fact, I would allow him to escape damage even if he did not do any "roleplaying" at all (eg: he simply said, I roll a reflex save). Roleplaying is there to enhance your gaming experience, not to needlessly penalize those who don't as compared to those who do. So basically, your stats delineate the boundaries within which you are free to roleplay. This is why I have always believed that roleplaying and rollplaying complement each other, rather than being mutually exclusive (or as some still stubbornly believe, that one must necessarily come at the expense of the other). You can't roleplay if you are dead. And it is not the best roleplaying in the world which saves you from the dragon's breath weapon, but hard, cold stats. So if you want to roleplay properly, you had better first ensure that your character's stats are good enough to consistently succeed at the feats your flavour suggests he is capable of (eg: if your backstory is that of a master swordsman, then you better be very good at melee). The most beautifully roleplayed PC in a game would still be cannon-fodder if he is ultimately too weak to stand up to his foes. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I am not sure if it would be fun to play in a game with no stats, and it all boiled down to who was the best at trash-talking the other players. Everything would be so arbitrary, and no one would know where they stood.</blockquote>

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