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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 6202112" data-attributes="member: 17106">Ah, IMO.I, OTOH, think it's pretty clear what they meant.A few quotes from the 3.5 DMG:Regardless of what you do in your own game, or what some other game's approach is, is any of this particularly ambiguous? There's pages more stuff about balancing the game and adjudicating and changing rules, and plenty more 3e sources that address the issue the same way.Not true. The player is not using the rules in an acceptable way if he tells the DM what is happening. Under the rules, there's no Diplomacy check until the DM says there is one.And yes, referees do make up rules, albeit in a subtle way. They make calls differently for star players, or depending on the amount of time left in the game, or for any number of reasons with varying degrees of validity.Is it possible to have a bad referee, or DM? One who needs to be removed? Sure. That doesn't invalidate the role.And there is no disparity of choices. Every player has the same influence over the game: he creates his character and controls his character's decisions. The DMG also tells the DM not to mess with that.Yes, but if you try to mass market that game to people who like both, you're going to have some problems.Some people do see their failures that way. It's a question of attribution, in reality and in the game.No, I prefer an unrestricted DM.There's nothing in the Diplomacy rules that says that a check is possible with every NPC, or that the NPC has to sit around and twiddle his thumbs while the Diplomacy check is being rolled, which does take time. There is nothing that says the DM can't just add an arbitrarily large modifier to the DC to the point where the roll is meaningless. There's nothing that says the skill elicits any specific behavioral change either; it's only attitudes.The line you draw between failure by dice roll and failure by DM choice is arbitrary and of your own making. In the world, it plays out the same either way.You trying is not you rolling the check. You trying is you stating an intent to speak and be Diplomatic. Everything that happens after that is not the player's decision. If you say you're going to try something and the DM says no, all he's doing is effectively assigning a circumstance penalty large enough that you couldn't succeed, and/or adjudicating the passage of time in a way that precludes the action (such as having an NPC attack before enough time has passed to talk things over). Neither of those outcomes is meaningfully different from the player getting to roll the check and failing. The result is the same.</blockquote>

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