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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8442050" data-attributes="member: 6779196">Yeah, for sure. There are always things that can be figured out from context. When a player says “I try to pick the lock,” I know they mean with thieves’ tools, I don’t make them say so. And when a character only carries one weapon, I don’t make them say “I attack with my short sword” every time. But there are also some things you can’t safely assume. Maybe Sly usually uses his short sword and follows up with his dagger, but are you going to assume that he does so when fighting a skeleton, which is famously weak to bludgeoning damage? I wouldn’t, and if Sly’s player didn’t specify, I would ask for confirmation, “with your short sword?”Of course. The player doesn’t know there isn’t a trap, and the decision to check if there is, and how to go about doing so, matters. That decision carries tension - do they play it safe and just scan with their eyes? Do they risk touching it? Do they use a 10-foot pole? Making these kinds of decisions are what the game is all about.Sure; we’ve all had experiences that shape our preferences today; I’m equally affected by bad experiences with DMs calling for rolls for every goddamn thing, most of which had no meaningful gameplay consequence, but just served to make the game into a total farce as characters regularly struggled with utterly trivial tasks. And I’m likewise not assuming you would do that.Regarding “player skill vs. character skill,” I agree that a player’s character building choices should matter, and their descriptive skills should not. But my preference is for the player’s decisions to be the most important thing, and for character build to be subordinate to that. Just like in combat, your decisions about how to position yourself, how to prioritize your targets, when to retreat, etc. have the greatest impact on your chances of victory, and your stats simply help insure greater consistency and might occasionally help shore up tactical mistakes. Likewise, I want the player’s decisions while exploring and socializing to have the greatest impact on the outcome, and their stats to serve as insurance against failure. When your decisions lead you into risky situations, your stats will help you have a better chance of avoiding those risks. They’ll also help inform what kinds of tasks you’re best suited to. A character with high strength and low dexterity is probably better off trying to open locks by breaking them than by picking them with thieves’ tools because if a roll is required, they’ll have a greater chance of success at the former.Checking for traps is again not an approach but a goal - to learn if there are traps or not. The thing that’s missing, for me, is what they’re doing to try and learn that.Yes, as I went into above, there are some things that can be safely assumed, such as a character using the weapon they currently have drawn to attack the target they’ve been attacking for the past few rounds when they say “I attack”, or a rogue using thieves’ tools when they say “I pick the lock.” But there are other things that can’t as easily be assumed. Are you touching the chest when you check it for traps? I don’t want to make that decision for you, you tell me.As I’ve told you many times before, all I’m looking for is reasonable specificity. If it’s clear what you’re trying to accomplish and how, I’m not going to insist you phrase it in some specific way. But it does need to be clear what you’re trying to accomplish and what you’re doing to try and accomplish it. Yes, this does mean you have to accept that the outcomes of your actions are a direct result of the specific actions you declare, that’s kind of the point.I understand that different players have different levels of skill and comfort when it comes to describing their characters’ actions, and I take that into account. I know most players aren’t engineers and aren’t going to know how a trap would likely work and how to find it without setting it off - neither do I! I interpret action declarations in good faith, and I don’t insist on any particular degree of detail, only reasonable specificity. As long as I understand what you are trying to accomplish and what your character is actually doing in the game-world, we’re Gucci. I’m not going to spring any gotchas on you because you said something the wrong way, I’m just trying to insure a clear and internally consistent narrative, and to avoid making decisions for you about what your own character does.Of course. Likewise.</blockquote>

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