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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6200364" data-attributes="member: 6681948">So the PC’s enemies are not closely connected to them?  No, they are playing first level characters, and they want to hunt down a dragon.  If they must be afforded the potential to see the King, why are they not equally entitled to be afforded the potential to hunt down a Dragon.  Have you decided the time is not right (because they are 1[SUP]st[/SUP] level) for them to confront a Dragon, so you are refusing to frame the scene at all? While a different issue, I don’t think characters should stop being CHARACTERS in combat, but I know some perceive the shift to combat means the characters must lose any personality so they may deploy their combat capabilities in the most effective manner possible (and, in some games, failure to do so means character losses). And here we differ. I’m fine having a setting provided, characters created, and there being other players in the setting whose actions can also have an impact. I juxtapose this against “the PC’s barge in to the offices of the Chamberlain and demand to see the King.” That may well be a starting point for a series of earlier decisions and manouevres, rather than the endpoint.  Alternatively, why have the players forced their way into a situation they know may not be resolved to their benefit.  Perhaps the best they can hope for in this scene is to gain information on the ability to access the King, hopefully not offend the Chamberlain so their later return will not be faced with issues right out of the gate, and move on – that is, part of a larger series of events and fictional positioning designed to lead to access to the King, knowing that will not be a quick or easy process. Here again, we may differ.  I don’t want the GM to read  me a story about past events – as much as possible, I want my PC to experience them.  Can he influence later events?  Possibly – the Chamberlain may recall that they were utterly rude, or they may make a more positive impression. Neither result need get them the immediate audience they seek, but both change the fiction, and impact their future efforts.  Again, I think we simply disagree about whether the world should proceed on an entirely linear basis, guided exclusively by the focus of the moment. Things can happen which the players were not expecting, and for me that enhances, rather than detracting from, the game And we’re back to “who decides whether the justification provided is adequate to permit the roll?”  The PC can’t use this ability without the GM adjudicating he has sufficiently justified its use,  and this is precisely as things should be. However, when we suggest that the task of using diplomacy to persuade the Chamberlain to grant an immediate audience with the King, this is a game breaker.  Seems like, in both cases, the GM is deciding whether the players have adequately leveraged their PC resources in order to be permitted a roll. Again, GM deciding whether or not to engage the resolution mechanic.  “That was very clever, so I will give you that one with no need to make a roll.  Your character’s relative skill is irrelevant.” You just described a situation where you unilaterally decided that no roll was required, and success was automatic. That sounds like you decided the outcome from where I sit!  Did the players have the ability to override your decision? If not, you were the final arbitrator.  I am returning to your “we use a chart to set DC’s” model. Does the chart ignore the capabilities of the PC’s? I must assume not, because they are never to be in a position where they cannot mechanically succeed.  I am assuming players improve with levels, so if the DC’s are flat, the ability to succeed at L1 becomes more and more likely as levels rise, unless the DC’s rise with them.</blockquote>

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