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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7400847" data-attributes="member: 996">It's the DM who makes that determination, the system can be a good or bad tool for carrying it out, and, if bad, can be 'fixed.' "Illusionism" is bad enough.  I'll tolerate it,  because it evokes the idea of a stage magician entertaining with 'illusions,' which is a pretty good analogy.  But calling it dishonest is inappropriate.  Do you rail against magicians in 'Vegas for being 'dishonest?'  No.  RPGs are all about characters who don't exist doing things that never happen.   What was going on, and went on in D&D as a matter of course back in the day, was that the players did not have full knowledge of the system nor how it was being used to resolve their actions and the events around them that might affect them.  That's all that's required for illusionism.   It's entirely the responsibility of the DM (we are talking 5e, DM Empowerment is a big thing, with it comes DM Emresponsibilityment).  Whether he decides to fudge a bit when a resolution swings too far, or he decides never to run certain sorts of scenarios to avoid such swings coming into it, it's his responsibility.We can 'blame the system,' but it's generally the DM who chooses the system, and the DM has latitude to change that system, as well.Skipping apprentice levels is a fine option, and an example of 'fixing' the system.  'Smart play' is perhaps even more often brought up in the context of classic D&D, and is very much of the same ilk as 'illusionism,' an approach (technique/tool) that worked very well for many people, for decades. It's just obviously named by it's defenders rather than detractors.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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