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Message: <blockquote data-quote="seskis281" data-source="post: 4119201" data-attributes="member: 41593">Actually I don't think we're that far off...  I agree completely that, as a DM, if I ever say "just because I said so" to a player and claimed DM Fiat it'd be a real bad thing.... continual arbitrary reversal of rules will lead to players having a real bad experience. This, however, was what I was extrapolating with my reference to more complex rule sets - quite simply, the more rules you have (written down on the published page), the less areas are left to the DM to officiate. This is a great example because this very situation came up just two sessions ago. I had a wizard who wanted to forge the will and legal documents of an apothecary (corrupt) who met his demise at the hands of the party. Now, I play C&C. It doesn't have "Forgery" or skills. My preference is for this type of open system, because I can adjust the rules or the needed check against the circumstances of that particular moment... I asked him how long he was planning to sit and study the handwriting, I then asked him to roll a d20 check (as per the seige mechanic) against his Intelligence and Dex modifiers (he had a +2 Int and no bonus or penalty on Dex). C&C uses a system of primes, of which Int was one of his, and you decide quickly if the skill is something this character would grow in ability with levels. As a wizard, I make the DM Fiat call that "writing" skills (including "forgery") would be something a wizard would advance and get better in. So I set a challenge rating according to my rules:CR 3 + 12 (its 12 if prime stat involved, 16 if non prime - this was prime). 15 needed to succeed.He rolled: 9 ... added +2 (Intelligence) and +5 (levels) = 16. He did it. (Had about a 60% chance), so I describe "It takes you a little longer than you anticipated, and at one moment the beads of sweat from your brow almost fall to smudge your careful work, but in the end you produce the documents that will pass most inspections, except by experts."All of that, by the way, took only about 30 seconds in game time.Ok, so I know that the counter-argument is that "hey, that's just because you're comfortable house-ruling on the fly... I'm not." - This could lead us back into a whole other thread/argument and I seriously don't want to go there or flame on as far as system/editions go....I fully appreciate and recognize all those who want a system to be as "complete" "out of the box" as far as rules go.... I just warn that people should be wary that you really will never get there... For those anticipating 4e I sincerely hope it lives up to the expectations being set.... but be careful when you use terms like "fixing the problems of...." because one person's "problems" are usually another's selling points..... (i.e. unbalanced XP progressions - this is one of the things I LIKED about 1e and not 3.x; ascending AC I LOVE about d20, didn't like in earlier editions - boy, I've been caught between schools on these personal preferences!)Thanks, BTW, on the sig quote comment -- and hopefully we can keep having good, hard-nosed opinions and discussion about our differences without letting it get too personal. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /></blockquote>

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