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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7635731" data-attributes="member: 996">OK, that is just too good an observation to just XP and tacitly agree with.Yes, I totally get that, and agree it's very much a thing.&nbsp; I kinda alluded to it in the OP, with how you'd build a fire in the absence of any knowledge/wisdom Nature or Survival skill (&quot;...you'd describe exactly what you do, and if you &amp; the DM were in the same boyscout troop, probably succeed&quot;).&nbsp; Because another point about &quot;just RP it&quot; is that you are not substituting your own INT/WIS/CHA for your character's when you abandon resolution mechanics, you're substituting your DM's /perceptions/ and judgements about those qualities as you display them.&nbsp; Getting away from that is not just about playing a character that's objectively different from yourself in some statistically quantifiable qualities, it's about disconnecting that character from the web of human interactions (kyriarchy, at the risk of going political) that you, yourself are necessarily caught in.&nbsp; And that's /really/ tricky, and trickier the more the game leans on GM judgement.&nbsp; Arguably, getting away from that is impossible, actually.&nbsp; So, what this variant is, it's just going in the exact opposite direction. It's acknowledging that we don't get to play characters different from ourselves in a range of ways, in spite of mechanics that purport to do so. So drop the mechanics, and thus the pretense.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 7635731, member: 996"] OK, that is just too good an observation to just XP and tacitly agree with. Yes, I totally get that, and agree it's very much a thing. I kinda alluded to it in the OP, with how you'd build a fire in the absence of any knowledge/wisdom Nature or Survival skill ("...you'd describe exactly what you do, and if you & the DM were in the same boyscout troop, probably succeed"). Because another point about "just RP it" is that you are not substituting your own INT/WIS/CHA for your character's when you abandon resolution mechanics, you're substituting your DM's /perceptions/ and judgements about those qualities as you display them. Getting away from that is not just about playing a character that's objectively different from yourself in some statistically quantifiable qualities, it's about disconnecting that character from the web of human interactions (kyriarchy, at the risk of going political) that you, yourself are necessarily caught in. And that's /really/ tricky, and trickier the more the game leans on GM judgement. Arguably, getting away from that is impossible, actually. So, what this variant is, it's just going in the exact opposite direction. It's acknowledging that we don't get to play characters different from ourselves in a range of ways, in spite of mechanics that purport to do so. So drop the mechanics, and thus the pretense. [/QUOTE]

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