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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest 6801328" data-source="post: 8055935">Maybe I should start a new thread with this, but the following occurs to me:There are a few topics that keep reappearing, and on each topic the same people appear on both sides:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Player knowledge (a.k.a. "metagaming")</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Knowledge checks.  EDIT: And also Perception and Insight checks.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Players making ability checks rather than declaring narrative actions, and how to resolve outcomes</li> </ol>I might also add:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The role of backstory, and whether it's ok to make up backstory on the fly to suit the player's purpose.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Whether in-game reality exists independently of the heroes, or if nothing is real until the heroes experience it.</li> </ol>Those topics often end up with the same arguments.  One is "player skill" vs. "character skill" (which is then countered with "player skill vs. character-creation skill").  One is about "acting like your character would".  It also usually devolves into debates about the definition of roleplaying.I (and I'm guessing others on my "side") have played the way where I don't use player knowledge, I make some kind of skill check to see if I know things, and I declare actions in the context of a list of skills.  When I "roleplay" this way, I'm trying to do what my character "would" do, and sometimes letting the dice tell me what that is.  ("Oh?  I failed my knowledge check?  I guess I don't know <insert fact>.  Ok, I'll pretend that."). I've done that.  Lots.I'm not here to tell anybody that this way of playing D&D is wrong.  I'm here to excitedly share that I've been playing a new way...thanks largely to the evangelism of a tiny handful of posters here...and it's amazingly fun.  The old way now feels (to me) more like my character is a marionette I'm controlling with strings, and the new way feels like I am my character.  Also, games are faster and more fluid, I think because everybody just does what they want to without stopping to check if they're allowed to.  It turns out that stuff was getting in the way of the game, and I didn't even realize it.And, as [USER=97077]@iserith[/USER] often shows with citations from the PHB and DMG, we're not just renegades making up house rules.  WotC is leaning this way, too, after 40 years of doing it the old way.</blockquote>

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