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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hriston" data-source="post: 6738386" data-attributes="member: 6787503">The DM has traditionally maintained impartiality because of the vast amount of meta-game knowledge at the DM's disposal. It's hard for me to imagine a game where the DM has the same investment in the agendas of NPCs and monsters as the players do in the goals of their PCs. It's always been my assumption that the DM's goal in play should never be to achieve victory over the PCs on behalf of the NPCs, whereas the immersion of the players depends on their full investment in achieving the goals of the PCs.That being said, impartiality doesn't depend on using dice to determine NPC reactions. Die rolls are merely a tool that can be used to that end, and shouldn't be though of as replacing role-play. Many DMs are impartial without resorting to the dice and role-play all NPC reactions.A die roll can't account for all the factors that can be taken into account in determining an NPC's reaction and many DMs don't use them at all. I'm probably more inclined to be guided by the dice than most DMs, but other than starting attitude and the possibility of risk to the NPC, I also take alignment, race, and a number of other factors into account in determining the reactions of NPCs.On the player side, you seem to have misunderstood the position of myself and others that PCs not be bound by the results of Charisma checks. My position isn't that the roll have no effect on the PC, but that the roll not occur in the first place. I agree with you that if a roll is made it should have an impact, which is why in the case of Charisma checks that would limit PC agency, I don't make them. Exactly. There's no point in making a check that doesn't resolve anything in the fiction, which is why I don't call for them, but I wouldn't call that ignoring the rules. The rules tell us that the players are in control of their characters, and we can't ignore one part of the rules in favor of another. Instead we need to understand how the rules are meant to work together and what purpose ability checks serve within that context.</blockquote>

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