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Message: <blockquote data-quote="5ekyu" data-source="post: 7587387" data-attributes="member: 6919838">I have not seen anyone who advocated a "player decisions dont matter" or a "roll everything" crowd. I haven't even seen a case where anyone is saying player decisions wont affect chances of success and fail at all during their game (as you make reference to "a game " in which those blah blah..if you got cites for that, by all means post them. But i see what you are describing as a parody of what is being said.Why?Almost everybody in the "not the side of balance you prefer, i think" admits to using the advantage/disadvantage process for (mostly what the Gm describes as) things that would help or hinder success. Additionally, there is the scope of success/fail, right? Are we talking success/fail on a check or success/fail at a goal? Take combat, the player makes a ton of decisions, who to attack, who to heal, which weapon, do i rage or not, do i use sharpshooter or not, etc etc etc etc that *influence* the results of the actions but for the large number of them whether or not an individual action succeeds is in the hands of the dice (especially if it directly affects the adversaries.) So, the descriptions don't always or necessarily even most of the time affect the die rolls or odds on the task level, but whether or not the choices of targets, timing etc make sense within the fight has a huge impact on whether or not the goal is achieved, the fight is won.Consider a fight in which say a fighter was rolling randomly for each turn what their actions were (even if limited to who do i attack, where do i move and what weapons do i use) vs one where the player is choosing the actions for his character. I would suggest that in the vast majority of cases the fight would be more likely won by the latter, player choices, than the former.So, even if the player choices never "influenced" a single die roll and certainly do not auto-success any attack, they still have a major impact on the success and fail, right? Player choices matter.But, it seems to me the real differences being put forth here are not that at all, but (as i said earlier off of your previous example - thanks again) how often does the Gm put a "auto-win without checking character" option to solve the challenges that matter? How often is it able to be solved soleey at the player side before the character stats even come into play?In the example i gave above, the player choices greatly influence the outcome, the result but at the various stages it is the character specs that guide the mini-resolution. Contrast that to say a game in which it is seen, put forth and even proclaimed that getting to even use your stats in a roll is cheating yourself because you see there are so often "no spec needed" auto-wins?That seems to me to be the bigger divide here. Not the extremes you put forth as your portrayal of "the other side".As pointed out earlier...***So, this is I think at part striking at the core of that "balance" the DMG mentions in its Middle Path and the others. How often do you have challenges that matter that are*:A only solvable by #1B only solvable by #2C that are solvable by either #1 or #2 D Only solvable by both #1 and #2 used in tandem* Perhaps this is better expressed as "how often does our resolution process result in cases actually being solved by:" since that is what the players see in play and that shapes their views going forward. Where:1 An absolute correct answer - if I do this, if I say this literally in this case, I get thru. No checks, no character skills needed. Just pick/guess the right key/way AS PLAYER and walk thru. There may even be more than one absolute answer - more than one just "choose the win."2 A way to use a CHARACTER's skill check (ability check) to get thru. May be more than one way to "check the win." ***</blockquote>

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