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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LostSoul" data-source="post: 6197836" data-attributes="member: 386">I'll come back to this.If I'm reading you correctly, you find it frustrating when rulings are made to keep the players "on script."  I'm still not sure I know what "on script" entails.Way back, Ahnehnois and I had a brief exchange about the DM's duties & responsibilities.  If I said that one of the DM's duties for a game was to "Make sure that the story produced by the events in the game unfolds like you planned," would that qualify as "on script"?  (I'm assuming so.)Are there others like that you'd qualify as "on script-ing"?  (Where did I pull "on script" from?  Doesn't matter.)That sounds good to me.  My DMing principles are things like "Provide meaningful choices", "Maintain the integrity of the game world", "Give the players the information they need", "Remain impartial".  "Make sure everyone has fun" isn't one of them, because I assume that, by doing the rest, fun will sort itself out.Anyway, keeping those principles in mind, this is how I'd run the "audience with the chamberlain" scenario:First I'd need to know the disposition of the chamberlain - not to you, but to the king.  Without any prior detail, I'd roll 1d6 to determine his loyalty.  Since he's a chamberlain and loyalty is a big part of his profession (thus "maintaining consistency"), I'd say that on a 5 he's not terribly loyal and on a 6 he's not loyal (but probably not disloyal).  On a 1 or a 2 he's completely devoted to his king; on a 3 or 4, he's loyal.  With prior detail I'd already have this information.I take this approach because I want to "remain impartial".  Obviously it's not completely impartial - I'm still making a judgement call as to how to assign those values - but more than it would be without the roll.  I think.With that sorted out, I'd note that charm person makes him friendly.  He'll help you out, but bringing you to the king is risky, since the chamberlain is breaking one of the king's edicts, and the chamberlain's most valuable asset is his loyalty.If he's not that loyal (5-6) he'll probably try to get something from you - a bribe or service - before he brings you to the king.  If the offered bribe or service is in that range where I'm not sure if he'd take it, I'd ask for a roll.  Otherwise he'll ask for more or let you in to see the king.If he's loyal (3-4) he'll hem and haw about how he wants to help you but his liege has told him that he is not allowed to bring in visitors.  This internal conflict is the trigger I use to determine when to call for social skill checks.  On a successful check he'll usher you in, on an unsuccessful one he might need more convincing.If he's devoted (1-2) then he'll explain to you why he can't let you in ("It will mean the king's doom!").  If you told him you could remove the king's curse that'd probably get you an audience.  You could probably exploit his devotion in some other way to trigger one of those internal conflicts and make a check to get by.What I'm trying to do here is "maintain the consistency of the game world" and "remain impartial" by playing the NPC as if he were a real character.  I want the players to be able to expect a chamberlain to act like a chamberlain, so that they can make decisions based off those assumptions.  I also want to make sure that I'm responding impartially to the player's actions - I don't have any specific "answer" to the "puzzle" here - so that the players can try all sorts of different approaches, based on playing the game instead of reading my mind.(Of course pure impartiality is impossible, but I think most people can do a good job role-playing NPCs without a biased agenda.)</blockquote>

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