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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7141130" data-attributes="member: 97077">The thing with "playstyles" is that, while everyone should play how they want to play, I think it's really important to understand how "playstyle" impacts player behavior. This is why I zeroed in on this one seemingly small point as the beginning of the issues you report.The DMG talks about this at length and I find that what is said in that section matches my experience with many different "playstyles." A possible drawback of "letting the dice strongly guide the game" is that the players think their decisions and characterizations aren't as important as the dice. Which is a fair conclusion, right? If I can always roll a Charisma (Intimidation) check to get what I want, then I should pump that skill up as best I can and do that, regardless of what the DM has telegraphed about the situation before me. Most everything is going to be a roll and nothing is going to be better than the skill in which I am invested. That's my hammer and everything else is a nail. I'm exaggerating a little bit here, of course, but I think most people who have played for a while can identify with this sort of thing.Now, contrast that with what the DMG calls the "middle path," wherein the DM balances the use of dice against deciding on success. This encourages "players to strike a balance between relying on their bonuses and abilities and paying attention to the game and immersing themselves in its world." Players like mine would almost certainly have examined what the NPC guard said and replied they had business with the chieftain. That's doubly true because they know automatic success is way more desirable than rolling that fickle d20 which will screw them and everyone they ever loved if given half a chance. As a result, we'd likely have no hostility at the outset, the players would modify their approach to include talking to the chieftain as well as the cult leader, and the DM would have no reason to be annoyed.So, none of this is to say that you or anyone else is playing the wrong way. And for some reason, people seem to link "playstyle" with identity which makes it tricky to have a conversation about "playstyle" without someone feeling attacked. I'm on your side when it comes to how you set the scene with the NPC guards. That was the best way to do it in my view - you told them in so many words what they needed to do to achieve automatic success (in the "middle path" anyway). It's just that "playstyle" in my view probably had a big hand in determining everything that followed. The reasonable expectation of the player is that there was going to be a roll of some kind. So why not choose the approach in which the PC was invested?Don't be too hard on yourself. It wasn't all you. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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