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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 6196922" data-attributes="member: 17106">And caused by it. There's always some reason why it doesn't work, or it gets used in some nefarious way.Well, generally by consensus, but yeah. What are the alternatives? Rational to some game designer?Again, that sounds more like you being jaded than you having any knowledge of how other DMing styles work. What from anything you've ever read on these boards would suggest that the player/DM relationship is not about consensus-building?Yes. Pretend for a moment, that you were the most charming person in the world. If you asked to see the President of the United States today, could you? Bill Gates? The joint chiefs of staff? The head of a random corporation? Unlikely. If you did somehow find a way into their company, would they listen to you? Do anything that you wanted them to do? Beyond unlikely.People can be manipulated, but it takes more than that.All that does is put you in the character's shoes. The character may understand that he's more eloquent and persuasive than average, but he certainly can't control the outcomes of his conversations that discretely, any more than you or I can.Sometimes it's fairly cut and dry. For example, if a player tells you he's trying to scale a wall, there aren't a lot of reasons that wouldn't require a Climb check, and the implementation is pretty clear cut. But when it comes to social skills and knowledge skills, it's rarely if ever that clear what the relationship is between the character's decision-making and the mechanical resolution of its outcomes.Of course, if you're chatting away and you have persuasion on your mind, it's not wrong to pick up a d20, look at the DM, and say "Diplomacy?". DMs are busy people after all, and sometimes it is helpful for the player to take a metagame perspective for a second and try to engage the DM to engage the mechanics. Given that this sort of interaction is the basic currency of the game, I don't understand why you think it requires a derogatory nickname.Frankly, that sounds to me like what you're advocating. My players can play anything they want and do anything they want, as long as I approve of it. Yours apparently have to stick with an "incredibly narrow" set of rules and strictures.As you've pointed out, your approach requires that the rules are agreed upon by everyone in advance. Mine requires that the players accept that I am in charge. In practice, are players more amenable to agreeing to follow a hackeyed ruleset, or a person who is (hopefully) their friend? Given the choice between the two, the DM is far more flexible, far more amenable to the players' specific concerns, and very likely a far better source of rulings than the rulebooks themselves. Players don't just put up with it. They beg for it.</blockquote>

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