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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8725731" data-attributes="member: 6779196">Earlier someone, don’t remember who, said that their response to a player describing a particularly clever approach would be “cool idea! Roll [whatever] to see how well your character pulls it off.” And as a player, that would frustrate the heck out of me. In fact, I’ve had exactly such an experience before in an online game. We were petitioning the chief of a Barbarian clan for aid or something, and throughout this scene I had been listening carefully to the DM’s portrayal of her, listening to what she says, trying to get a good idea of who she is, what she values, etc. I choose my moment carefully, and at what I think will be an appropriately dramatic point in the conversation, I deliver my carefully thought-out argument for why the chief should help us, and…“Make a persuasion check.”For all that effort, I don’t even get so much as advantage. What the heck was the point? Why did I bother listening to what the DM said or crafting an argument I thought would be convincing, when I would have gotten exactly the same result just by saying “I try to persuade her to help us” and pressing the Persuasion button on my Roll20 character sheet? Moreover, it made the story feel a lot less credible to me that, because I rolled low, this speech was completely ineffective despite my conscious efforts to hit on points I knew this character would find compelling. In any movie or book, this would have been a climactic moment where the hero’s compelling speech wins the hearts and minds of the tribe. But, no, apparently the events that we narrate are not as important as the random numbers the computer spits out.If it works for y’all to prioritize the dice over the specifics of what the player describes their character doing, I hope you have fun that way. But it really, really doesn’t work for me.</blockquote>

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