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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Water Bob" data-source="post: 5630648" data-attributes="member: 92305">Lucky guess.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />      Exactly.  So that I could make the point. Otherwise, there'd be two arguments: one about the original bit of contention and the second about what I used to back it up. I nipped the second argument in the bud by using something specifically stated in the rules.      Typically nothing.  Sometimes, rolls are made just like the New Style.  "Off camera" and quick. But, if the focus was on you making the sword, we'd describe what you're doing a little bit more in detail, and I might even use the extended Crafting rules where multiple rolls are required.  This is where New Schoolers differ.  They just make rolls, never describing what they're actually doing.        Actually, Hit Points do make some simulationist sense.        I'm not sure what you think my original posts were implying, but I will tell you I've changed my mind, yesterday, on how I would handle the First Aid check. The way I'm going to handle it is much more like what some were thinking I was saying originally but wasn't.        Depends on the character, but I get your point and agree.      OK.      I'm saying that now. A character will have to earn a First Aid check in a logical way, just like a character has to describe how he is hiding when he uses the Hide skill.        We actually began with that kind of detail in combat.  It's gone a little more free-form.  I usually describe the action unless the player wants to describe what his character is doing.  In this situation, I always let the player trump what I say. But, typically, I set the scene.  "You hunch at he waist, your spear held in one hand, your hatchet in the other.  Quickly, you move by the hedge to where the Grath and Thrallan are fighting.  With all your might, you shove the tip of your spear forward....Roll your attack!" Depending on the results, I will describe what happens.  And, I usually roll NPC throws behind a screen so that the players don't know what happened until I describe it.  "You shove, and the Grath dodges left.  Your spear tip draws a line across his rib cage.  It begins to bleed."        No magical traps in my game.        I use the character's skill to govern how much information I tell the player. For example, let's say there's a floor trap that has a string that cross the floor, but if you cut that string, you set off the trap.  The string is a decoy.  The trap is really pressure sensitive. I'll roll the character's Disable Device skill behind the screen and look at the result.  If the roll is high, I'll give the player a lot of information to work with.  If it's low, I'll only tell the player what he obviously sees and answer his questions. Note that a smart player can still figure out how to disable the trap even if his roll is low by asking the right questions.  This rewards the player and his skill at playing the game instead of a dice throw. If I've giving the player a lot of info, I might say something like, "There's a string that crosses the floor, but you've seen this before.  It's not the way to disable the trap and is likely to trigger the trap." Now, because of his skill, the player has good information to work with--stuff his character would know but the player doesn't--in disabling the trap.    Yep.  That's part of the game and part of real life. Some of the best game moments I've had have come when the players were out of supplies. Case-in-point:  I was running a 1E AD&D game, and the players were exploring this old, abandon castle.  They were in a room with 4 doors.  One door lead to the way they had come.  One door opened to a room with a giant snake in it.  One door opened to a room with a giant spider.  And one door opened to a room full of giant rats. This was one of the old D&D "B" series adventures. The players got very creative.  They went into the room with the giant spider, paralysed it and then cut its venom sack.  Then, they captured one of the giant rats, paralysed it, shoved the venom sack down its throat, and threw slow poison on the rat. Then, they simply opened the door to the giant snake room (the only room with another door to go further into the castle), tossed in the rat, then decided to rest for a bit and memorize spells. After a few hours, they opened the door to find the snake dead with this big lump in the center of it. The problem came when the mage realized that he had memorized a spell that required iron shavings as its material component, but he was out of that particular item.  I, of course, made my players keep track of the material components. The player of the mage said, "Where in this dank, dark dungeon, right?  It's humid in here?  The walls drip with water?" Yes.  I'd described the place like that earlier. "Well," he said, "there's these big doors, right?  And, they've got this big, iron hinges?  Rusty iron hinges?" Oh yes. "I'll scrap some off." God, that was a fun game.</blockquote>

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