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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8602761" data-attributes="member: 42582">Agreed. (That may not be surprising.)Overall, I prefer check-based systems (eg Circles in Burning Wheel and Torchbearer; Streetwise in Classic Traveller) but also enjoy resource-based ones. But I also conceded that, in most versions of D&D, stuff like the helpful sister will probably be done via free roleplaying and negotiation, rather than via expenditure of resources or making a check with a meaningful consequence for failure. I still think this is viable, and that claim is based on the experience of handling it via freeform roleplaying and negotiation in Rolemaster.Part of what makes freeform approaches viable is that, in the end, the players will confront a challenge or obstacle or demand that it's clear can't be resolved by their PCs' helpful relatives or friends: eg if it's established that the mayor is neither relative or friend; and it's the case that the players (and the PCs) want the mayor to do X; then the players are going to have to come up with some plan of persuading the mayor to do X (or replacing the mayor with their friendly doppelganger who will do X, or whatever other plan they come up with).And credit where it's due: I'm really just reiterating here a point already made by [USER=22779]@Hussar[/USER].What's more boring? Having a player decide their PC's sister works for the mayor, and that they will ask her to leave the side gate open? Or having the PCs work through whatever means or resource expenditure the GM had in mind?I'm with [USER=22779]@Hussar[/USER] - if the players are positing the sister solution, presumably they aren't super-thrilled by the prospect of doing whatever they think the GM would otherwise have them do!(The idea that this is the first step on an infinite path is of course pretty implausible; everyone at the table recognises that there are limits implicit in the fiction about who the PCs friends and relatives might be, and everyone at the table recognises that at some point the PCs will therefore have to find some non-friend/relative-based solutions to their problems.)This claim seems implausible to me - an overgeneralisation. And it also rests on exaggeration.D&D magic-users from time to time resolve obstacles by simple declaration. That doesn't necessarily prevent there being drama and tension - and I'm not just meaning the tension of do we have enough spells memorised? A lot of people assert that they can experience drama and tension in their free-form social resolution, and that is nothing but simple declarations.If the discussion about the sister occupies twenty minutes of table time, in which there is consideration of things like whether she and the PC are on good terms, and whether she will get in trouble if the mayor learns who left the side gate open, and whether or not the PCs should offer a sweetener to get her to agree to help them, and a bit of roleplaying of the actual making of the request, then maybe there might be quite a bit of drama and tension. That's really quite context dependent.Conversely to the above point: if the players decide that their PCs need to see the mayor today, and so are prepared to put in effort to do, that does not guarantee drama and tension. I don't think that working through the GM's conception of how to get into the mayor's house will necessarily be drama-and-tension laden. That will depend very heavily on the fiction that the GM has in mind. Based on my experience, I think there's actually a real risk of it being frustrating, or of turning into comedy (because this sort of thing is very easy to lampoon).</blockquote>

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