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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9745611" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Based on what was discussed in the previous thread....I am apparently a diehard new-school fan (4e, 13A, and DW are among my favorite systems)...who demands skilled play. Which I have been repeatedly told, albeit not quite in so many words, should be a logical impossibility.I am also beginning to understand that there are multiple rather fine lines involved here, which often get overlooked in favor of the bold and probably inaccurate standard narrative of "skilled play". Namely, that early-edition games (and thus old-school-styled games) required it, and modern-edition games prevent it, thus leading to all the various alleged ills (playing the character sheet, for example).As noted in the previous thread, and in your post sort of indirectly reference, is the issue of good faith--but I generalize it to both sides, player and GM alike. On the GM side, what I personally would call "pixelb!+@#ing" is a GM presenting a puzzle in bad faith. It requires reading their mind, or giving so precisely exact a response that it functionally requires mind-reading, or otherwise having something that is "solved" by magically knowing what is right, not by actually applying reasoning.But there's a player-side version of bad faith: refusing to actually engage in play, and instead simply engaging in invocation. That is, I cannot conceive of actually playing a roleplaying game as anything other than describing one's actions. In certain limited circumstances, where one would essentially have to describe the exact same kind of action over and over and over again until it became nauseating, we allow some flexibility here--e.g., we don't expect the Fighter to precisely describe every single sword-strike they ever make, because that would be an enormous time-sink for very little added benefit. But in other contexts, especially outside of combat, I literally cannot understand why someone would "play" by simply crying out mechanic titles and then doing a little jig when a die gives a big number. That's...not play, any more than shouting "FIRST DOWN!" or "SECOND AND SIX!" is actually, y'know, playing gridiron.I demand good-faith play, whatever side of the screen I'm on. I won't tolerate a GM who thinks she's oh-so-clever with unsolvable riddles that require me to read her mind. I won't tolerate a player who thinks she can coast through my game by just saying "I persuade the guard!" (I will, in general, give much more leeway to the latter if they are relatively new, or rusty, because I know players can be shy, or can be taught bad habits by prior GMs; but leeway only goes so far.)</blockquote>

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