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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6203679" data-attributes="member: 6681948">Who decided that the NPC was initially Unfriendly or Hostile?  Who decided he is the Chamberlain and can grant an audience with the King?  The GM sets the challenges the PC’s face – I don’t think this is news. “Want” and “can succeed” are entirely different. I don’t see the huge difference you seem to in “don’t bother rolling” and “go ahead and roll – you got a 20?  Sorry, that fails.”  If you are asserting that the GM should not say “Mysteriously, you cannot speak to the Chamberlain – your feet refuse to approach and your voice dries up” then I agree that is not appropriate (unless there is some in game cause for this as well).  Your character can stand still and recite poetry while the Orcs attack – but he seems less than likely to win, or even survive, the attack.  Again, I don’t see how “the DC is so high you cannot succeed, but go ahead and roll” is markedly different from ““the DC is so high you cannot succeed, so don’t bother with a roll”.  There is the issue that your character would not know he cannot succeed, but that issue also exists when you roll a 20 and the GM says “oh, too bad – it failed”, unless the GM makes the roll in secret. I’d generally expect a -10 to put success in any real challenge out of reach, but based on @permerton’s 60% success chance, -10 would leave a 10% chance of success. Animal empathy is like diplomacy – does that mean it fails if you don’t speak Bear?  I think it would impose pretty severe restrictions, though – you certainly can’t ask to see the King!  But can’t a dog’s mournful eyes soften the heart and make the target more friendly to the dog? OK, again, I don’t see how a GM setting a DC at a level where you need to roll higher than a 20 to succeed (with all bonuses you can muster” has not dictated the results before the attempt is made, but if rolling dice makes you happy, be my guest. To me “blame the module” is bad GMing.  The author is not running the adventure – you are.  The module may say “DC is impossibly high” or “Diplomacy against the Chamberlain cannot succeed”, but I as GM chose to keep that, so the result is my responsibility.  Agreed.  The player, and the character, knows (at most) that their most impassioned efforts fail. That seems part of “indie style”.  And that means I am not interested in “indie style” as portrayed. Yet rolling a 20, you DO know.  Should that metagame knowledge also be removed? Let me tell you my problem – you assume bad faith on the part of the GM.  Why do you need to be shown the mechanics back up the GM?  Why must he prove he acted in good faith?  I would also say that, if every possible use of Diplomacy which would be relevant (not just fluff) has a DC that precludes success, that is no better than saying “You can never use Diplomacy”.  It’s actually worse – in the latter case, I would not waste character resources to be good at something that will never work.  That does not mean it has to work, or even be a possible solution, every time.  If I wish to befriend the King and his Court, my massive dpr does not help – they are dead, not friendly. When we get told “players will subordinate their desires to the shared narrative’s best interests”, and “the GM will always abuse his power so  make him prove he’s playing by the rules”, I perceive that as a double standard at best. Further, if combat skills only solve combat problems, and social skills solve both combat and non-combat problems, now the combatant is truly worthless.  A balance of challenges is preferable to me.  Why do we trust the players to prioritize the shared narrative if this is the social contract, but not trust the GM to follow the mechanics if that is the social contract? I thought you were OK with a DC so high you could not succeed on a social challenge, yet now it is arbitrary, and any possibility of reasons you do not perceive up front is ‘after the fact justification.  What changed?  I think you view this in reverse.  The fact that the PC’s cannot persuade the Chamberlain (assuming they would normally be able to, based on their fictional positioning) screams, to me, that something special IS going on – there must be some special circumstances, something in the background, something which is preventing their success.  This does not mean the player must be told what that is, nor that the PC has a flash of clairvoyance to explain it. I suggest there is a great deal of ground between “I get the most positive interpretation possible, ignoring any restrictions even when written directly, and there are never negative consequences to my actions” and “Any use of a spell to is automatically subjected to either the most restrictive interpretation possible under the rules, and/or manipulating the game world to punish the players.” Again, the GM is assumed to act in bad faith, always, but players are assumed to act in the utmost good faith, always.  Why? “Say yes or roll, but be aware your roll may not have a possibility of success” sounds OK. Exactly – if you don’t want to be hunted by the King’s Guards, maybe mind control of citizens and nobility should be avoided as much as burning villages to the ground. Repeated for emphasis – I am not the only one who sees this. Bingo  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] – a series of actions possible to deal with the obstinate chamberlain.  In my view, they need not be actions which can immediately be taken in the scene with the chamberlain to immediately succeed.  Retrench and try a different approach to achieve the goal, rather than expect the King’s Nephew to be attacked outside the palace so you can defend him and get to see the King. A great example – and the reason I am not interested in the “Player Omniscience” indie style seems to presuppose.  If that is a prerequisite to Indie style – AND I AM NOT SURE IT IS – then I want no part of Indie style.</blockquote>

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