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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5814430" data-attributes="member: 42582">A 3' long silver rod in a torch bracket (generally placed at or around eye-level, if period movies are to be believed) strikes me as pretty visible. If I walked into a room containing such a thing, I think I would notice it on a better than 1-in-3 chance following ten minutes of hunting around.Now maybe I'm overestimating it's visbility - and perhaps it's a very tarnished silver rod - but I think part of [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s point is that different game participants can have different views as to what is hidden/concealed and what evident.I don't think it's bad to allow DMs to set what they think is reasonable.  But then, I've generally played with reasonable people and don't know why anyone would bother to do otherwise.This takes me back to chaochou's post above - what does "engaging with the bed" mean?For any sort of resolution system to work, it may be that the players and the GM have to be on the same page to a signficant extent. Maybe resolution by free-roleplaying puts particular pressure on this aspect of RPGing, but I'm not sure.Well, there's no deep difference - is there? - between AD&D's social mechanics (with the reaction chart and CHA bonuses) and 3E's social mechanics, except that 3E divides CHA into a number of sub-abilities that have different flavours (Bluff, Intimidate, Diplomacy).I quite like a game with those different flavours, because it let's the player express something about the personality and worldview of his/her PC through the flavour(s) that s/he chooses, but I think they're obviously not essential. So on this I think we agree.I agree with Hussar that a good social resolution system will ensure that this is the case, but not for the same reason. I'm not the biggest fan of "good speech earns big bonus" - I tend to confine it to very modest bonuses. But it will matter in another way. In a good social resolution system, the exact words you choose will shape the consequences of resolution - be they victory one way, or the other, or a compromise of some sort.(And so as not to be too coy, the sorts of resolution systems I have in mind here are skill challenges and their (rough) analogues in other games eg BW's duels of wits.)</blockquote>

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