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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lonely Tylenol" data-source="post: 2703030" data-attributes="member: 18549">Mostly it's that there's a mechanic implemented that coordinates it.  I don't see much problem with applying circumstance bonuses for believable lies, but circumventing the system is right out.  However, there's no system for determining whether a character knows how to flank well, and so it must be ad-libbed.  As I've mentioned, such a system would be so impossible to implement it becomes a necessary hole in the rules.  There's no rule to determine whether you're a good flanker, and thank goodness for that.And speechwriters with many ranks of Diplomacy. I used to have a GURPS character who had the Lechery disadvantage.  I wrote down about a hundred bad pick-up lines and used them in game.  The GM gave me penalties to my seduction roll based on how awful the lines were.  It was great fun.  But I never attempted to pick up a girl without rolling the die.  I actually don't think I'd feel comfortable with that particular DM deciding whether or not my character managed to "score".  It would have felt kind of creepy...Well, whim and the MM and the DMG.  Most things are provided with DCs and stats intact.  If the DM changes them, he's deviating from the rules assumptions, and every time he does that he needs to inform the players beforehand.  That could be as simple as "I'm using monsters that I've edited and might not follow the monster design formula provided in the monster manual...be careful."  But it's the same warning required by the DM who says "I'm not using the Cha-based skills.  You have to roleplay it instead."  But that's also a different story because it deals with the world the PCs are encountering and not the characters themselves.  Using dragons with weird powers that the characters have to overcome using the abilities they expect to have available is different than changing the abilities the characters have available.  What does removing the Cha-based skills do to the balance of the Bard?  Of the rogue?  Of the cleric or barbarian, even?  Changing monsters or making things have harder DCs changes them equally for all players.  Changing skills changes them only for those players who wanted to use those skills.There's a baseline situation at least.  You know that if you have maxed out your Bluff skill there's a pretty good chance you'll be able to bluff most normal people.  Keeping track of game mechanics is much easier than keeping track of an arbitrary DM.  I don't think that understanding the skill system is something that one player can be that much better at than another, unless the other player is a complete newbie.  Not the same way that one person can be a good orator and the other trips over his words.The mechanics are what allow me to play a character that's a better liar than I am.  I play that role in the game by putting lots of ranks into Bluff.  But it's the balance between the mechanics of the Bluff skill and the mechanics of other skills and abilities that make the game fair.  Roleplaying can be encouraged by awarding circumstance bonuses for good roleplaying, but not necessarily for being good at what the character is trying to do.  If a dumb half-orc barbarian comes up with a believable lie, plausibly in character, and it seems to me to be the sort of thing that character would say in such a situation, then sure, I'll give him a bonus.  But if he comes up with something that's not in character, but would get him an advantage, I probably wouldn't give the bonus.  But the dumb barbarian would probably be better served intimidating in that situation anyway, and it would be more in the character's idiom to do things in character that would provide circumstance bonuses to Intimidate...raising his voice, standing up from his seat, snarling, etc.  edit: What Mishihari Lord says, above, on this topic.Having fun acting in character is part of roleplaying, but that's not all there is to roleplaying, and acting should not take precedence over providing a fair, balanced game.  But as you can see, some people want to toss the dice aside to use acting as a task-resolution system.</blockquote>

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