WB, I do understand what I'm talking about.
Encourage roleplaying, that's good.
Deny a PC the use of their skills as a penalty for not knowing them in real life? Stupid rule.
I'm sorry. Are you the agent I need to speak with to get my license from the National Roleplay Regulation Bureau? It's you that I need to talk to so that I can get approval to play my game?
You're the person that determines what's "good" and what's "stupid" in my game?
Whew. Glad I ran into you. There's a lot of red tape out there trying to get that license just so me and my friends can play the "right" way.
I think the key term in our difference here is "require" You say you aren't an ogre about it. Do you actually require procedural descriptions, or just encourage them? Up until now the impression I've gotten is that you won't even let them make the roll without a description of the procedure.
When a task is "in focus" (i.e. happening before the camera, so to speak) I require a player to describe his actions. No description means no roll. That's true. My focus is on roleplaying, not rolling the dice.
When I say I'm not an ogre abou it, I mean that I'll help a player if he's having trouble.
For most--it's just an obstacle to over come. It's a problem to solve. How am I going to get that unconscious character conscious? How am I going to get that door open? How am I going to get that wild horse to allow me to ride it.
The answer is not, "I'm going to make a roll." Your character doesn't know what a "roll" is, unless the character is rolling bones himself.
The "roll" represents and action or a series of actions. I want to know what those actions are.
Sometimes, players reason out and roleplay an action without ever having to roll dice. Getting past a trap is a good example. After roleplaying, asking questions, and the back-n-forth between player and GM, the character may learn that stepping on a certain floor plate will depress it, deactivating the spike trap that springs from the floor.
When the character rolls a heavy rock onto the floor plate and deactivates the trap, there is no need to make a Disable Device roll. The character has succeeded without making a roll.
That type of thing is foreign in a lot of d20-based games. It's more of an "olde school" concept.
Somewhere along the line, D&D became about making dice throws more than roleplaying.
I'm just adding the roleplaying back into the game.
As for the two year campaign... That's very short term for some of us, and really doesn't prove anything.
LOL. Really. Yeah.
Well, we're still going strong, and I've got a new player joining us soon.
(BTW: Naptha isn't made from tree sap; it's made from coal, tar, peat, or natural gas, and will pretty much boil away if you cook that mixture for 17 minutes. And since naptha fumes are flamable, you're risking an explosion.
)
I could have looked up naptha on the net, too. I didn't in my above description to make a point you seem to have overlooked.
I don't require a player's description to be accurate--especially with things that a lot of us no nothing about (Ilike making naptha). What I require is a believeable description that people will "buy"....something that sounds reasonable (though, in reality, may be as goofy and incorrect as saying that your Naptha is made from melting down old soldier's boots).
And, if it is important to "get it right", we do live in an age where we can just look it up on the net.
EDIT: BTW, when you say something is "stupid", you are passing judgement on my game--a game you really know nothing about because you haven't gamed with me and my friends. All you know about my game is what I've posted on these boards--the stuff you've read. And, I would bet $10,000 that you really have no idea what my game is really like.
You see, that's a pretty ignorant statement for your to make. A presumption. Now, you can say that what I write sounds like something that you would not like in your own game. But, that's not what you said. You basically said that my game is stupid because of something you dislike.
Listen to yourself.
