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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kigmatzomat" data-source="post: 9176360" data-attributes="member: 9254">Know thy players and their characters.  You don't expect Hercules to solve puzzles and Odysseus can't shoulder a Titan's burden.  If you can't make the system work for who you have playing, its the wrong game, the wrong system or you are the wrong GM.If you ask Odysseus to carry the titan's burden, he'll find a way to convince Hercules to do it.  If you ask Hercules to solve a sphinx' puzzle, he will kill the sphinx with a punch or drown her by redirecting a river or by hitting on Circe and having her turn the sphinx to a chicken.  And those will be handled by rolling dice.We roll dice for things we can do, like carpentry, hunting, engineering or (setting dependent) computers. We do this because its faster and it is fairer than letting out-of-game expertise dominate a game.We also roll dice for things we can't (or shouldn't) do. Players can't speak elven or cast spells and (outside the navy seal I gamed with back in college) they can't win a knife fight.Dice are good enough to determine if we live or die in combat or if we can rig up a rope line to lower a person down a cliff, it can do the same for riddles.If you want me to solve a riddle* instead of rolling dice, I want you resolve a grapple test by wrestling the navy seal.*I hate riddles specifically above all other puzzles. They are often rely on some cultural standpoint that isn't universal or is based on a point in time. (I.e. the 4 limbs/2 limbs/3 limbs riddle is based on canes when today its 4/2/6 with walkers)  And that ignores the ones that are simply factually incorrect or require you to mispronounce words to make the rhyme or pun work (often based on a localized accent).</blockquote>

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