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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 7305395" data-attributes="member: 6779196">Ok, so addressing “player skill vs. character skill” and which should be the determining factor in these situations... Both are needed. Compare to video games. It doesn’t matter how skilled Ezio is as an assassin, if I as a player suck at the game, Ezio will get killed, even if it’s not “what would happen” if you removed me from the equation. A game requires player input to be played, and if there is a degree of challenge, then that input will require a degree of skill on the part of the player. In D&D, the means by which the player interfaces with the game is by describing their character’s actions. So yes, whether or not you say “I search for an ambush” will have an impact on your character’s success, just like whether or not you press X has an impact on your character’s success in a video game.That said, the example of gaining advantage if you say your character is looking for an ambush is not an interesting form of engagement, especially if you don’t prompt the player, “are you looking for ambushes?” That would be like a video game that sometimes gives you a powerup for pushing X, but never tells you when that’s an option. If you prompt the player, it’s not much more interesting. That’s the game telling you “push X to get a power up.” There’s no real choice to be made there. What’s better is if the game tells you early on that pushing X can give you powerups sometimes, and then uses context cues to indirectly indicate when those times are. Or if pressing X to get a powerup also comes at a cost. That’s where the conversation of D&D comes into play - The DM describes a scenario. The players describe what their characters do in response to that scenario. The DM determines what rules, if any, are appropriate to resolve the characters’ actions and adjudicates the results. The DM describes the new scenario, and the process continues.</blockquote>

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