Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="DamionW" data-source="post: 2701820" data-attributes="member: 18649">The thing is, Fusangite, there are DMs who DO feel CHA based skills can be ignored in the game.  To quote some examples in this thread:(Emphasis added by me in editing)So, we see three different DMs whose playstyle encourages the removal of a CHA-based die roll when RPing a dialogue between PC and NPC.  The dialogue should flow naturally and using dice to determine the NPCs reactions is unnatural.  They are not the only ones, I have played with several other DMs of this mindset.That is fine with me, I can't tell them they're wrong, that's their style.  However, I usually find myself blindsided by such a playstyle mid-campaign as a player when I design my character with an emphasis on CHA based skills and then don't find out I can't use them only until I'm right in front of an NPC obstacle.  This usually happens because the DM finds the player-to-DM dialogue resolution mechanic as so fundamental to the game that they don't inform me up-front that that is their preferred playstyle.  They simply think it's the way the game should be played and me asking for a dice roll to sanity check my character's Bluff is an alien conceptI think the skills needed to perform level 2 abstraction playing are what make roleplayers roleplayers and not Level 1 abstractionists.  If you are unable to make decisions enough to abstract at Level 2 what your character should do, RPGs are probably not a good hobby for you at all.  What my suggestion is is that in no one area should my ability as a real person to perform at Level 3 (to actually swing a sword in combat, to actually build a house with carpentry, to actually deliver an effective lie) dictate an automatic success or failure for my character's level 3 action in game (To fictionally swing a sword in combat with an attack roll, to fictionally build a house with Profession: carpenter, to fictionally convince an NPC with the Bluff skill).  The two actions and the skills needed are separate and uncorrelated, because I am not actually my character and we don't possess identical skills and knowledge.To answer your final question, there are DMs whose playstyle says the information I give you when verbally act out my character does trump dice rolls.  I've been placed in situations where I give a perfectly plausible, well described premise for a lie in level 2 abstraction.  The DM then asks me to RP out that lie to see if it works.  That's asking me to abstract at Level 3 for bluffing when they never ask for it in any other mechanic, simply because their enjoyment from the game is gained by witnessing my attempts at dialogue.  I cannot convince DMs like this they're wrong.  My argument is that this needs to admitted up front to players at the start of a campaign where and when the player's actual abilities (to either deliver a lie, or (to get back to the OP) to solve a puzzle) will be the dictating factor in the character's success.  At least then the player has the option to not design a character more charismatic or smart than they are or to not play in that DM's game.  To not tell the player is to deprive them of that choice.</blockquote>

Verification