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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Snarf Zagyg" data-source="post: 8278223" data-attributes="member: 7023840">I will try again. You seem determined to argue with the term and the premise.In fairness, I did not invent the term, and like a lot of jargon (or self-appellations), it can be alienating, especially if you are attempting to assert that a different modality of play is skilled ... as, in fact, other modalities are.So in the hopes of making this a more productive conversation, I would advise the following-1. Whenever you see the term skilled play, substitute a different term in your head. Use "Snarfian Play." Because I am awesome, and it also reduces to the same acronym -"SP." If that doesn't work for you, try Arnesonian/Gygaxian/Kuntzian Early D&D.2. I would recommend against trying to use single instances to "argue" against modalities of play. For example, if someone said (pace your last paragraph quoted) that "roleplaying" means that they aren't playing D&D, because, hey, you have to roll to attack ... then that would obviously be untrue and unduly argumentative to someone who wanted to discuss roleplaying in D&D. It smacks of "gotcha" instead of conversation. In the same way, the overall modality of SP (see what I did there?) does not mean there there is never roleplaying, or using your strength to bend bars/lift grates, or saving throws.3. If I were you, I would start by assuming that SP does exist, that other people (the other people on the thread, at a minimum) are familiar with it, and that it involves some element of player skill as opposed to character ability. I would then assume, at least for the purposes of conversation on the thread, that you could start with the concepts that have been given to you as what exemplifies SP (for example, player knowledge of how to explore dungeons, player ability in solving riddles or puzzles, player improvising in burning down a door instead of using their defined strength ability score, characters equipping items like continual light/dark rods due to player knowledge) and what exemplifies not-SP (using a skill check to solve a riddle, using a strength score to bust down a door, making decisions that harm the party or character based purely on RP reasons) and working from there.4. Finally, I would remember (going from 2 & 3, and the OP), that in this discussion about D&D, we are almost always discussing a continuum of play. Players that optimize for combat will also roleplay; players that engage in skilled play will also optimize their characters; roleplayers will also engage in skilled play; no matter how you slice up the different modalities of play, there are no binaries, just a lot of overlapping circles.Hope this helps.</blockquote>

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