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<blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7140008" data-attributes="member: 97077">There's more to the context though than the guards simply telling the PCs they can't pass unless they have business with the chieftain. The PCs are also outnumbered and the guards know it. The PCs have no apparent leverage based on what we know. Taking that into consideration, while it may be reasonable for a player to try to have his or her character intimidate the guards, it is also reasonable in my view for the DM to just say the attempt fails, no roll, based on the context of the situation as described. Now, if there's an expectation that I get to roll an ability check for any action I take, generally speaking, then it would be a different story - that swingy d20 plus whatever investment I made into Intimidation allows me to ignore that context. That goes to &quot;playstyle&quot; influencing how players may behave in a given situation.As for telling a player what his or her character thinks about something, I'm not a fan of that even though plenty of DMs do it. I prefer to describe the situation and let the player decide what the character thinks about it. I actually caught myself saying &quot;You think...&quot; in a session a couple weeks ago and stopped mid-sentence and corrected myself.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="iserith, post: 7140008, member: 97077"] There's more to the context though than the guards simply telling the PCs they can't pass unless they have business with the chieftain. The PCs are also outnumbered and the guards know it. The PCs have no apparent leverage based on what we know. Taking that into consideration, while it may be reasonable for a player to try to have his or her character intimidate the guards, it is also reasonable in my view for the DM to just say the attempt fails, no roll, based on the context of the situation as described. Now, if there's an expectation that I get to roll an ability check for any action I take, generally speaking, then it would be a different story - that swingy d20 plus whatever investment I made into Intimidation allows me to ignore that context. That goes to "playstyle" influencing how players may behave in a given situation. As for telling a player what his or her character thinks about something, I'm not a fan of that even though plenty of DMs do it. I prefer to describe the situation and let the player decide what the character thinks about it. I actually caught myself saying "You think..." in a session a couple weeks ago and stopped mid-sentence and corrected myself. [/QUOTE]

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