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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5346830" data-attributes="member: 996">First of all, Instant Friends /is/ a mechanical method of resolution, it's just a bad one.Secondly, School of Thought A is, indeed, flat-out wrong.  Well, if any part of the intent of having resolution systems is to enable players to play characters with abilities different from their own, it's wrong.  If you're doing RP on the level of a highly immersive LARP, maybe it's fine.  Y'know, the kind where duels are resolved by hitting eachother with PVC weapons.If a player wants a half-orc character who wields a huge greataxe, do you require he be strong enough to swing around a huge greataxe?  If a player wants to be a wizard able to cast arcane spells, do you require him to read up on Crowley?  Probably not.  That's what all your characters stats and class abilities and all those resolution systems are for.If a player wants a half-elf character who is glib, charming, confidence man, do you require the /player/ have the social skills of a Frank Abagnale Jr?If you subscribe to School of Thought A, yes, you do.Or have I radicially misunderstood what you meant by "Social encounters don't need a mechanical method of resolution?"Sorry to get all judgemental, there, but that's one of those things that annoys me, I probably saw more of it than was really there.Final Thoughts on the issue:A similar back-and-forth was going on on the WotC boards about the new magic item system.  One thing it finally boiled down to for me that seems aplicable here, too.There are some rules that creative/skillfull/experienced players and DMs find 'constraining' and dislike or overrrule quite a lot, and other rules that folks like that find 'open' and conducive to creative solutions.  Instant Friends might well be one of those.  Conversely, for slightly less superlative DMs and players, who maybe have a little more tension at their table, or not quite the level of system mastery to make judgements on the fly, sticking to a solid ruleset is comforting and leaves them free to exercise their brand of creativity without constantly worrying if changing or getting all creative with something might cause them problems later.  For this sort, a power like Instant Friends could be problematic.Thing is, given a 'stiffling' power, the former sort of players have the skillset to decide to houserule the power into a less stiffling form, to simply step outside the box and go their way.  They may be a little grumpy about it, and look down on the pleb who had the audacity to take up column inches with such a thing, but it's not killing their game or their fun.  The latter sort, OTOH, when failed by the rules they trusted to give their game a firm foundation, are at something of a loss.  At best, they may, after a bad experience or two, ban the offending power, making whoever was hoping to have some fun with it resentful.  At worst, they could roll with it, since 'it's the rules' and let it really distort their campaign, until they just decide 'this game sucks.'So the question is, who do rules need to be written 'for?'  The gamers who don't really need them, and use them as a starting point from which their imaginations take wing?  Or the ones who actually use them prettymuch as written, with the (perhaps overly hopeful) expectation that following rules will keep their games flowing in a balanced, reasonably trouble-free way?</blockquote>

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