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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 4675050" data-attributes="member: 54707">I take an extremely light touch Stoat and let them role play it. Everything that can possibly be role played.We use describe and demonstrate and only use dice if someone doesn't know what to do or how to proceed.For instance if they are tracking something through the woods then I show them pictures of the tracks. They figure out what made the tracks and the best way to do the tracking.If it's a puzzle then I give them the puzzle and let them do it themselves, like in a video game.If they need clues or the players can't figure it out then we might turn to dice.(Then again they might fail at it, or have to come back at it later on when they've figured out something they missed before.)Otherwise they demonstrate the skills and initiative and creativity necessary for problem solving.And so solve the challenge for themselves.Having number rolls for everything seems like having a video game cheat code to me.And to me defeats the point of role play. As a matter of fact it's not really role play at all, it's go up to the challenge and then roll dice instead of figure it out for yourself (there are obvious exceptions of course, things that cannot be demonstrated properly by the players).I keep up with all that in background and award experience for clever solutions or actions later on. But I never say this is a skill challenge, instead I give them a problem and they deal with it themselves.I do like the fact that 4E attempts to address these things and expand the game, but in the old days we just called this role playing. And you did it by talking about it or showing what you were gonna do.You didn't need a die roll to do your thinking for you, you played it out yourself.And basically I think that is a built in game design flaw, designers not trusting the players to be bright and innovative and creative and instead saying, well, we'll just roll the dice as a mechanical method of problem solving. this is an attempt to mechanize everything, when just letting people think would be a far better course of action to pursue. Plus people get better at all kinds of skills with actual practice, die rolling the results robs players of the ability to think creatively and act innovatively, letting them fall upon the crutch of their own method of escaping skillful use of capabilities. Player's don't really practice their own capabilities of problem solving or challenge redress, they die roll to avoid the real effort. Of course there are exceptions, you cannot fight a real dragon, so you die roll it, but you can easily try to convince a DM playing the part of the dragon that your argument is persuasive if you actually try a real and valid argument rather than just saying, I'll die roll to show you how brilliant my argument is. Really? You can't just devise a brilliant argument? Can anyone really envision being in a difficult negotiation and saying to the other party, "hey, my argument is really, really great, and I've got the die rolls to prove how skillful and brilliant an orator I am." And then the other guy going, "Really, show me, show me! And do I get a saving throw, or am I gonna have to really think about the gravity of your numbers?" I think certain unchallenged RP game paradigm theorems are the result of overstressing artificial mathematical and mechanical assumptions over any recognizable semblance of reality to the point of near ridiculousness.Imagine if you were playing an interesting video game, or were playing a sport, or taking part in a play, and instead of having to resolve a difficult problem or situation by action or innovation you just hit a button to simulate random number generation and the numbers, not your actions, thoughts, innovation, experimentation, or ideas, decided whether you actually solved the problem or overcame the challenge, or not? How would that be interesting, and for how long? And how is that "challenging to the point of requiring a skill?" What skill, die rolling? You're not really role playing a skill, you're roll playing a random number generation of an approximation of a skill if you did in fact exhibit a real skill (but you don't, neither on the part of player, or character), which you're not because what you are really exhibiting is a numerical substitute for what you would have done had you really role played the skill.I like the idea of skill challenges, very much, (of course they are really as old as the game itself) but I don't like a mechanic in which the method of problem solving is to die roll the problem to death.Numbers are not actions, dice are not methods of problem solving, a flick of the wrist is not a real skill of any kind in most situations, and statistical variation is not a pathway towards innovation or overcoming "challenges."It's just a mechanic, not a solution.</blockquote>

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