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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8290318" data-attributes="member: 42582">The system was Rolemaster. One of the PCs built up social skills and (I think it was) certain knowledge-y/craft-y skills (maybe some sort of garden/landscape design?) in order to be better able to impress and influence the NPC in question.Perhaps my use of the phrase &quot;advance their positions&quot; caused confusion? I meant it in the most general possible way - ie getting their PC into a preferred situation in the fiction (preferred both by the player and the character) in virtue of having a better relationship with someone.But it wasn't done in order to solve a puzzle or overcome a challenge that the game posed. The characters could have disregarded these NPCs, or maintained a much more neutral posture towards them, and it wouldn't have set their PCs back in any material, tactical or strategic sense.I think if we use the &quot;skilled play&quot; label to describe any time a player takes a decision s/he thinks is good for his/her position in the game and his/her PC's position given the latter's goals etc, we obscure what I think is a pretty important contrast between games where the goal is overcoming puzzle/challenges, and games with different sorts of goals.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8290318, member: 42582"] The system was Rolemaster. One of the PCs built up social skills and (I think it was) certain knowledge-y/craft-y skills (maybe some sort of garden/landscape design?) in order to be better able to impress and influence the NPC in question. Perhaps my use of the phrase "advance their positions" caused confusion? I meant it in the most general possible way - ie getting their PC into a preferred situation in the fiction (preferred both by the player and the character) in virtue of having a better relationship with someone. But it wasn't done in order to solve a puzzle or overcome a challenge that the game posed. The characters could have disregarded these NPCs, or maintained a much more neutral posture towards them, and it wouldn't have set their PCs back in any material, tactical or strategic sense. I think if we use the "skilled play" label to describe any time a player takes a decision s/he thinks is good for his/her position in the game and his/her PC's position given the latter's goals etc, we obscure what I think is a pretty important contrast between games where the goal is overcoming puzzle/challenges, and games with different sorts of goals. [/QUOTE]

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