I'm not assuming anything. They are telling me what they are doing, not just holding up a die and giving me one word that doesn't at all tell me what they are doing.
yes you are unless your game is the most boring pedantic thing where every breath every meal every sharpening of weapons and cleaning of armor is explained in detail... but I bet it isn't, that you assume alot based on the scenes and the time.
First, that's not in my opinion a good reason to get rid of players describing what their characters do and just assume it for them.
great... i don't 'get rid of it' I just allow my players to use what comes naturally for the situation.
Of course some times you have to ask for more clarity when someone describes what their character does. It just goes for 100% if they don't describe it at all and just hold up a die and say a skill, to once in a while if they do describe what their character does and I have to ask for more detail.
sometimes you will need details... but a lot of time the context makes sense.
Second, the bolded makes it even worse for me.
of course it does cause you picked out the middle ground and not that the end result was identical... it was about 6ish years.
That's 100% you playing that PC for that person.
no it isn't
I don't want you to give me important information that I'm not looking for just to give it out.
except in the example the player DID want it... just he jumped through hoops to get what I was willing to give easily had he not talked in circles. about things I don't understand.
That guy was looking for how many files there were, so if he had just held up a die and said, "computer skill," you'd have gotten it wrong with your assumption.
except he want that to then ask if he could figure out the date... that was what he end result wanted. or like you said with the 'gimp' comment, I would have just given what he wanted to the technmancer no issue.
Your example is why I do it my way and not your way.
except the example IS your way... did you miss that?
I'm willing to bet you get it wrong a lot more than 1 time in 50 by the way, and that many times your players just take the important information rather than what they were going for.
citation needed. Have you played in my games? have you talked to people who have? I play in games like this too... we rotate DMs and I have as a player seen that it rarely happens... you however with 0 experience in playing or running these games are saying you bet we don't know what we experienced.
Why bother to describe what their characters are doing if they can just hold up a die and say, "nature!" and be sure to get the best information with a successful roll?
it's more like... we walk up to a door, we just got hit by a trap 2 rooms ago, and the fighter say "wait we should check this" so the rogue says "Perception or investigation and does the thieves tools help?" what am I supposed to do make them say out "I walk to the door and check it for traps" when I know that is what they mean...
Your example above shows that you play do their characters for them.
no it doesn't... the example is the player doing it your way and you are still unhappy with it... he gave detailed explanations of actions. How did I play his character?
That guy wanted to know how many files there were on the computer. That was him playing the character. If he had just held up a die and said, "computer skill!", you would have been the one playing his PC to be looking for the dates of the files, not him.
again... HE DIDN'T just want the number of files, he WANTED the number of files (a number never given cause it doesn't matter) so his character could figure out the dates approximately... go reread the whole thing
