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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wicht" data-source="post: 6197147" data-attributes="member: 221">What you are describing sounds like typical DMing to me. I am not sure why you keep insisting others of us would try to 1) be arbitrary in including the chamberlain, or 2) have a preconceived idea of how the whole situation would turn out.Nor am I sure why you would hesitate to take me at my word that different play styles will produce different game experiences. I think most of the contentions are coming from people assuming things about other people's games which are not implied. To the point of your confusion, what I have been disagreeing with is 1) that DM's have not traditionally been given the authority to change or ignore rules as they deem necessary (which does not imply they will do so arbitrarily, but may do so if they feel it is necessary); and by traditionally, I mean it is a philosophy of play inherit in every edition of the game prior to 4e.2) That a DM must always allow players to fully utilize the skills they choose to use in the way the player wants to use them. As in the chamberlain example, there may be mechanical, in-game, pre-planned reasons why diplomacy will not work on the Chamberlain and a player attempting to use diplomacy might not, per the rules, be allowed to and that this does not constitute DM Force as defined earlier in this thread. Thus my assertions are, in the main, that1) DMs are the final arbiter of the rules and events within the game, per the traditional rules and play-styles of Dungeons and Dragons, and that departing from this one rule/tradition/expectation, in any ruleset prior to 4e is a fundamental shift in the dynamics of the game. (And this says nothing about the casual use of DM force, which is apparently defined as something else). 2) The rules as written allow a DM to exercise and maintain a control of the in-game world in a manner that will, in the normal course of events, prevent players from running rough-shod over the campaign world. That is, the rules for diplomacy, the spell description of charm, et. al., contain enough guidelines to satisfactorily prevent players from gaming the system in such a way as to break the game.</blockquote>

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