NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 2699713" data-attributes="member: 7240">Nice post, Mallus. It sounds like your DMing style is much closer to mine than those on either side of the debate, here. And, you sensibly redirect us to the central issue here: what kinds of GM-player interactions are rewarding for the participants? In my Monday night game, our GM has created a skill called Knowledge (Tactics); I believe it is a class skill for Fighters and possibly some other rapid BAB advancement classes. But nobody ever rolls on it. Why? Because although our GM is a retired military officer with a degree in military history, his ability to fight tactically under D&D rules is inferior to that of his players. So, although we could use the skill to get him to position our characters for flanking et al, we don't, in part because we can do a better job, ourselves but more importantly because tactically outmanoeuvering our GM is a key element of our enjoyment of the game. Similarly, for some people, playing out NPC interaction word-for-word is such an element; for others, solving puzzles is. For anything a player could figure out him- or herself, the rules already contain or could easily accommodate a skill that the player could roll on to either substitute for or aid (such as in the form of hints) in that process be it Bluff, Diplomacy, Knowledge (Tactics), Knowledge (Arcana/Nature) [for monster identification and weaknesses], Knowledge (Puzzles) or whatever. How and whether such skills are employed is a matter of the particular style of the GM and his group.I would not have fun in Don's group. But some people's assertions that the RAW allow his players to solve puzzles with simple Int checks or that puzzle solving is intrinsically opposed to role playing are totally unpersuasive to me. With respect to the Int check argument. Even if I were to accept that all types of intelligence and cognition are located in that attribute and not in Dex, Cha or Wis or not statted at all, very smart people presented with cryptic crossword puzzles or other kinds of puzzles popular in our culture usually can't figure them out without a fair amount of training and practice. This suggests to me that these skills probably have DCs of over 23; the people I see figuring out the London Sunday Times crossword are usually either employing their Craft (Cruciverbalist) skill or taking 20 or both.With respect to the anti-RP argument, I will say that the puzzles my GM presents are jarring in their interruption of my suspension of disbelief. But they don't have to be that way. Not every puzzle entails being attacked with a giant floating word jumble surrounded by undispellable anti-magic fields. Performing a ritual at the correct time on an astrological megalith is a good example of a puzzle that could blend right in with the landscape of almost any RPG.</blockquote>

Verification