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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 9315648" data-attributes="member: 1465">I see myself a lot in this. It's not actually that much the social interaction pillar that bothers me, because in fact every D&D edition I know has had very light rules for this. It's more the exploration pillar... I am thankful that 5e goes light on that as well, but already the DMG text on finding hidden doors and stuff irks me a lot (but fortunately, as the other thread reminds up, few DMs actually read or use the DMG), because it does forcibly fill an otherwise very useful blank space in the rules, by telling the DM that she must use passive perception. It puts a spanner in my work, actually more as a player (if my DMs had read the DMG, which again they don't) than a DM, because for me a major part of the fun in the exploration pillar is trying to make the best decisions based on what I know of the surroundings, and using passive perception as described in the DMG makes every PC go on autopilot.I can't help but thinking there is too much hyperbole in gamers' opinions. No you don't have to be a professional improviser, as well as you don't have to be a professional mathematician/statistician, a professional economist, a professional biologist/ecologist, a professional historian or a professional martial artist and weapon expert to still deliver a very successful game of D&D with your friends, without the additional rules for all this stuff, or even the advice and guidance. This is the sort of stuff that a lot of gamers keep bringing up when they are not playing, but having played for almost 30 years I can attest that almost nobody cares that much once they get to play the game, they can have a lot of fun even with bogus economy models, flawed dungeon biologies, historical inconsistencies and even the occasional math errors.That's not to say I don't want advice or guidance, but rather that I don't certainly need it. The game basic framework already has simple rules that cover everything: ability checks and its modifiers (dis/advantage, proficiency). Additions beyond those can be surely fun when designed nicely and when they match your playstyle, but can ruin fun when they are presented as must-use* and don't match your playstyle. In such case, a gap in the rules is much better than a bad rule. *this is why I always advocate to treat any RPG ruleset as a toolset, even when it doesn't explicitly say that something is optionalThis is tricky... taken to its extreme, you could have a game where the players never make any in-game decision, because deciding what is the best thing to do is covered by an Intelligence roll of their characters. The DM doesn't ask a player what their PC wants to do next, it's always dice rolls that decide. Such game would be very similar to gambling (at a totally random gambling game like a slot machine, where your only decision is whether to play or not) and I don't gamble. I play a RPG because I like the idea that I have to figure out what to do.In social interaction, it has always been said that a shy player should never be penalized because of their shyness. At the very least their PC's Charisma score is supposed to make up for that. But it would also be very bad for a DM to stop an otherwise talkative player to engage in a conversation on the ground that their alter-ego has a low Charisma. But then, this is an asymmetric situation in more than one way... if you as a player cannot come up with a believable lie, your PC's high Charisma is at least supposed to boost a bad lie into a believable one, while your buddy at the table might have a great lie in mind, only for his PC's low Charisma to spoil it. One thing is the content/decision provided by the players (i.e. the chosen lie, which door you choose to open, which monster you choose to attack) and another thing is the performance of your decision, which is carried out by the PCs. This dualism is great when everybody is onboard.I think that if a gaming group decides to use zero social interaction rules (including never calling for Charisma checks), then it means they are putting the entire burden on the players. It can be done this way, but rather than a great DM, you need great players, at least great at social interactions. If I had someone with a social disability in my gaming group though, I would think twice about going totally rules-free on this.Talking about the other end of the spectrum! Well, I am not sure even the complete opposite will certainly be not fun. I can see myself playing a game where every single social interaction is in fact resolved by dice. As long as there is still some decision to be made about what to do e.g. fast talk, make up a lie, insult the guard's mother, tell them to look at their untied shoes... anything that doesn't turn the whole game into autopilot. I don't know if I would play such game longer than an evening or two, but it could be that perhaps the adventure's focus is on other pillars. Now clearly, if that would be the approach in all pillars, I probably won't have much fun at all.</blockquote>

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