Mallus said:
If a guy playing a dumb-as-mineral-deficient-dirt barbarian is enjoying solving a puzzle, or suavely sweet-talking information out of a noblewoman, or devising a brilliant strategy to overthrow the correct king, I'm not going to discourage them. When you've got an engaged, actively participating player is not the time to enforce some standard of character 'realism', IMHO...
And the adventure is always, ultimately, about the player, since they're the ones making the decisions. To what extent a player likes to pretend their not in control and making choices 'in-character' is up to each individual player, but what it amounts to is a game you're playing with yourself.
See, that there is the core of the argument. People who advocate chucking interaction skills, search skills, and everything but the combat resolution rules should also chuck Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma as attributes. What prevents a player in your game from putting all his stat points into the physical attributes (maybe some for WIS for that WILL save) and just "roleplaying" away his mental deficiencies?
"Roleplaying" means playing your 8 INT half-orc barbarian as if he were sub-average intelligence, even if you're a medical student (or doctor) with a 160 IQ. It doesn't mean entertainingly coming up with the "right answer" to a puzzle because "you're so smart." Divorcing your own mental abilities from your character's is a daunting task (playing dumber, more clueless or more borish than you are). However, it's not as daunting as playing smarter, more cunning, or more charismatic than you actually are. The former is difficult, but the latter is pretty much impossible.
The only fair solution is to make the player's stats the same as the character's. Otherwise, you've chucked the system balance out the window. Under this theory, you should replace INT, WIS, and CHA with Perception, Willpower, and Magical Aptitude. This is because trying to model reasoning, memory (except for in-game knowledge), cunning or persuasiveness is pointless in this approach, as the player supplies all those things directly.
That's a potentially interesting game, but it ain't D&D.
PirateCat said:
I agree. Anyone can swing on a chandelier - until rules are put in that detail what's required, at which point only the characters who are qualified can swing on the chandelier.
I usually agree with you completely PirateCat, but not this time.
While it's true that anyone
can swing on a chandelier in a rules-light system, how often
does it actually happen? In my experience, you need a player who decides to do it
for no defined reason and no certain benefit, and a DM who
encourages and rewards the player for his clever action.
A DM who treats it like a regular attack will quickly find all but the most determined players not bothering, because it doesn't DO anything. A DM who penalizes the player for the attempt but doesn't offer a commensurate reward will also discourage the behavior. As a player, I'm more inclined to do something that I know will work rather than risk wasting actions on something that might gain me nothing.
I agree with the notion that stunts and challenges should be better codified in D&D, with feats representing those characters with special training in doing it well. That seems totally fair to me. Of course, that means rewriting large parts of the system from scratch. Like Mearls did (quite successfully, magic aside, IMO) with
Iron Heroes.
MerricB said:
Greg K said:
Things like throw sand in the eyes, stun an opponent, disable a limb, inflict ability score penalties- all without needing a feat.
Ah... you mean cast spells. All without training.
Well, put another way, mages get to do it better and more reliably. Their spells become like feats - special ways of accomplishing interesting effects.
As an aside, I find it odd that the magic-user lovers want to be the only ones able to do anything interesting in combat. From my perception, Gary is one, btw. Which is why only magic-users got anything more interesting to do than "whack the other guy" in the early versions of the game. Which is probably also where the perception of wizards as the class for "experienced players" comes in.
This will probably generate a storm of controversy...oh well.
