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<blockquote data-quote="Lizard" data-source="post: 4207466" data-attributes="member: 1054">This is true of all social skills, in every RPG which has them. If that's how you want to run the game, more power to you. Lord knows we did it that way in the dark ages, when rocks were soft and dinosaurs walked the Earth and orcs lived in ten by ten rooms.However, I prefer to back up roleplaying with mechanics, so as to make everyone feel that it's &quot;fair&quot; and to model things which aren't just roleplaying -- no matter how hard he tries, the gnome is probably not as scary as the half-ogre, all other things being equal. (Which they need not be, which is why you can get a gnome fighter with intimidate +12 and a half-ogre cleric with none.)I'd call the latter a &quot;failed&quot; result for the social challenge, which is the point pretty much everyone has been making. It's not some kind of magical boolean gateway; it's a mechanical framework the DM uses as a guide for roleplaying and campaign plotting. If you garner four &quot;failures&quot;, then the consequences are...sub optimal. The Duke might well &quot;help&quot; you in such a way as to get you all killed. The players are not told if they succeed or fail on each roll; they just see the conversation unfold.I've had plenty of times where players have rolled high on Sense Motive...and the NPC rlled higher on Bluff. I tell them, &quot;He's telling the truth.&quot; and let the story unfold. When the treachery is revealed, they don't say &quot;You lied!&quot;, they say, &quot;Damn, that bastard had a high bluff skill, didn't he?&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lizard, post: 4207466, member: 1054"] This is true of all social skills, in every RPG which has them. If that's how you want to run the game, more power to you. Lord knows we did it that way in the dark ages, when rocks were soft and dinosaurs walked the Earth and orcs lived in ten by ten rooms. However, I prefer to back up roleplaying with mechanics, so as to make everyone feel that it's "fair" and to model things which aren't just roleplaying -- no matter how hard he tries, the gnome is probably not as scary as the half-ogre, all other things being equal. (Which they need not be, which is why you can get a gnome fighter with intimidate +12 and a half-ogre cleric with none.) I'd call the latter a "failed" result for the social challenge, which is the point pretty much everyone has been making. It's not some kind of magical boolean gateway; it's a mechanical framework the DM uses as a guide for roleplaying and campaign plotting. If you garner four "failures", then the consequences are...sub optimal. The Duke might well "help" you in such a way as to get you all killed. The players are not told if they succeed or fail on each roll; they just see the conversation unfold. I've had plenty of times where players have rolled high on Sense Motive...and the NPC rlled higher on Bluff. I tell them, "He's telling the truth." and let the story unfold. When the treachery is revealed, they don't say "You lied!", they say, "Damn, that bastard had a high bluff skill, didn't he?" [/QUOTE]

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