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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5733404" data-attributes="member: 42582">My group has never really got into the "bonuses for eloquent roleplaying" thing, so I don't have the same strong response, but can see where you're coming from.For me, it's more about the fiction. If the player composes and recites some beautiful poetry, than that's what has happened in the game. And if (for example) the audience are poetry lovers, that should give +2 to the (Diplomacy, Bluff, whatever) check. And if the check fails, we certainly know it wasn't because the poetry was bad! It must have been for some other reason.On this approach, the out-of-bounds thinking doesn't ensure success, but it gives the players a degree of control over the content of the fiction, which (at least for some players, including - I think - mine) matters to them.I personally like this line of thought. The challenge to the players is not to find endruns around their PCs' abilities, but to use their PCs' abilities to manipulate the fiction in interesting and unexpected directions.I've also found that this is the simple "cure" for skill challenge problems. Set up fictional consequences that the players will care about, and they'll engage the fiction in an appropriate way even if it's not mechanically optimal. In my game one PC is trained in Bluff but not Diplomacy, and another vice versa. But sometimes the player of the first uses Diplomacy rather than lying because he doesn't want the consequences, in the fiction, of lying. And sometimes the player of the second lies rather than uses Diplomacy because he doesn't want the consequences, in the fiction, of being nice and/or telling the truth.In my opinion the Burning Wheel Adventure Burner has a good discussion of the importance of the GM pushing the fiction hard in this way - obliging the players to engage (even if their PCs aren't that good at it) or suffer the (fictional) consequences. This is one occasion where the GM can't afford to say yes and let the players themselves decide the paremeters of the situations their PCs are confronting - because the game will just collapse into mush. The GM has to stick to his/her guns - once the situation is framed, if the players want to change it they have to change the fiction in the sorts of ways thewok talks about (or using knowledge skills in the style of Burning Wheel "wises", or however else is acceptable among the participants at the table).</blockquote>

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