Say yes or roll the dice - where's the 'no' option in there?
I assumed it was fairly obvious. It would be a case where an action is clearly no possible within the logic of the genre and the fiction in play. So, a lower level PC trying to accomplish some epic challenge, which I think is one
@pemerton has discussed in a couple threads. In D&D, generally, I think a situation which is 'nonsensical' or something like that certainly qualifies. Either the GM or the table generally will presumably police this kind of thing. Honestly the only place where I've seen it come up in standard play is something like a player who isn't all that familiar with the genre and wants to do something that is just not normally allowed.
If the player is left to decide then the robe will be free. Every time.
I disagree. Nor do I think it is likely to be all that important in a lot of cases. High level D&D characters, for example, generally have wealth far beyond their ordinary needs. If it really IS important, then it wouldn't be something that would be handled without a check of some kind, most likely. Honestly, shopping for clothing doesn't seem to be a very important concern in a D&D game, generally. As I said, there are many options to decide this kind of thing.
Unless, of course, one has players who are actively willing to work against their own interests, which is (literally!) self-defeating.
Again, you construe D&D to be an adversarial, or oppositional sort of game, and I don't. The players in my games are fellow participants in an interesting activity. They don't have 'interests', though the CHARACTER may, and if something is really important to the character, then we'd probably need to roll.
It's the DM's job to use the setting as a proxy in order to challenge the PCs, and thus the players. It's the players' job, via their PCs, to overcome these challenges among or around whatever else they might be doing in the setting.
We just see this differently. I agree that challenging the characters, and by extension possibly the players, is an element of D&D. It is not something that has to be happening at every turn though.
Because neither the PCs nor the players know in this case how low the stakes have become; that there's nobody home and they're going to succeed unless they Keystone Kops it. If the PCs somehow learn this in the fiction through their actions and-or deductions, all well and good, but I'm not just going to tell them up front and nor should I.
Why? Again, if the stakes are this low, then it seems irrelevant. Its like dicing for walking or eating, we just don't need to do these things.
No matter how high the stakes I'll stick with free role-play for social interactions. For physical things that require abstraction, then I largely agree with you here.
hehe, well, I think we agree on more than we think. OTOH I like setting up Challenges that are social, or at least partly so. I think there is some genuine diversity of ways to do it there though.
Whenever the DM (by proxy as noted above) challenges the players and the players try to overcome that challenge, the players and DM are in oppositon to each other as represented by the PCs being in opposition to whatever setting element is posing the challenge.
I don't disagree with this, really. I just think it is not something that permeates the game, or is the primary fundamental animating element of the game. The GM can 'represent the opposition', but also be the player's ally.
And on a broader scale I posit that in general the DM and the players do in fact have different sets of interests, or at least priorities. The DM has to look out for the game/campaign as a whole and prioritize that, while any player only really has to look out for the well-being of their PC(s) and can freely prioritize that.
I don't see how a campaign has an interest, myself. The game is played, there may be different priorities at times, yes. In the end though its all about what the players are doing in the game. This is easy to test, a campaign cannot exist without players!
My stance is that just because a roll is meaningless isn't reason enough not to do it.
I have my players roll "null" rolls fairly often, largely so that when I call for rolls that matter it's not a metagame trigger that something's afoot.
Because player knowledge and character knowledge are or should be the same. If I-as-player know that you-as-DM are going to say yes every time then it's safe to assume my character is also going to know that in the setting. And if you don't want my character to know that then don't give me that info as a player; make me roll and keep that doubt lingering.
This, IMHO, is a holdover of Gygaxian puzzle/challenge style play. Once we start playing a game where 'story' is a significant element, I think it just gets in the way. Players are part of the 'team', there's specific times when it can be fun to keep them in the dark, but as a general rule story game play is not very concerned with 'hidden fiction'.
That's a hard no from me. In this example, if it becomes apparent at some point that the PCs are going to need that 'key' then we're going to play out their getting of said key in time-order as it happens in the fiction (i.e. if they go get the key before starting the job we play the key bit out first; if they only realize halfway through the job that they need they key we play out their abandoning the job and going after the key instead). Detail matters. Sequentiality is vital.
Why? what is so significant about imaginary linear time? I mean, sure, its simpler and maybe cleaner, and might avoid a retcon or something potentially, to do things in order, but its not NECESSARY. BitD has certainly shown a way to do things in a non-linear order that works fine. Anyway, I'm only saying I don't do some boring trivial non-adventure just to explain every single little bit of the fiction, its not interesting.
And the risk with playing out scenes as flashbacks is that the players can (and IME will, guaranteed!) meta the hell out of it; if the currently-being-played action is happening tonight and the flashback scene was yesterday morning the players can go absolutely gonzo-nuts crazy with their PCs' actions in that flashback as they already know they're all going to be alive free and functional tonight! And that, let me tell you, can and does get degenerate in a real hurry.
How to prevent this? No flashbacks.
Again, you keep invoking these statements that cast the players in the role of playground miscreants or something. It is odd to me. Admittedly, maybe if I was running a game for children I'd be a little circumspect, but in fact my feeling is kids are pretty cool with this kind of thing, they are usually perfectly capable of understanding 'game logic'. The people I typically play with are certainly old enough not to need to be policed like this at all. Honestly, a player who insisted on these sorts of hijinks would probably get booted by the rest of the players at my table! lol.
