Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jim Hague" data-source="post: 2684084" data-attributes="member: 17550">For you, perhaps.  I've had players (at odds with Shaman's experiences) who're either new to roleplaying, or unsure of what to do, that make their best effort to roleplay and fall short.  But they have characters with a good Bluff or Diplomacy.  According to you, they should get no breaks at all - they can't roleplay, so screw 'em, right?  As has been pointed out, and is an important point you and some other posters seem to miss - characters are not their players.  This is a fundamental truth of the game, and unless you can produce a gnomish illusionist, I challenge you to say otherwise.  Well, then you're missing a fundamental design principle of 3.0/3.5 - the rolls are there to remove the arbitrary nature of social interaction present in previous editions.  They're there to make things fair and level all the way around the table.  The GM is meant to be a fair and impartial judge.  And since we're bringing in personal experience - yes, a glib or very outgoing player can easily overshadow more timid or less experienced players at the table.  Again, the skills and rolls are there to level the field for everyone.The rolling of skills like Bluff and Diplomacy shouldn't take the place of roleplaying, but neither should they simply be ignored because you're feeling snotty and elitist and have decided to impose your style of play onto your players whether they will or no because it's 'real roleplaying'.</blockquote>

Verification