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<blockquote data-quote="EricNoah" data-source="post: 4806114" data-attributes="member: 4">I'm trying to figure out why &quot;play it straight by the book, live or die means nothing to me&quot; never worked for me.&nbsp; Two thoughts:1) There are the rules to the game, and then there is the intent (which is certainly open to personal interpretation).&nbsp; To me, the intent is the fun of adventuring, and the game is more fun when the characters have a decent shot at survival; plus I want to reward reasonable risk-taking as I find &quot;probe every bit of floor with a 10' pole&quot; utterly boring. 2) D&amp;D has always been my gateway at being the character in a fantasy novel.&nbsp; If Bilbo had been killed by those trolls near the beginning of The Hobbit, there wouldn't have been a story about him.&nbsp; So I think in my mind that's where the &quot;PCs are special&quot; mentality comes from.&nbsp; They are the star of the show; things don't always work for them the way they work for everyone else; and further, the stars of the show should be able to direct luck their way a bit more than normal (thus my use of action-point style rules that allow the avoidance of the worst of the random luck of the dice).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EricNoah, post: 4806114, member: 4"] I'm trying to figure out why "play it straight by the book, live or die means nothing to me" never worked for me. Two thoughts: 1) There are the rules to the game, and then there is the intent (which is certainly open to personal interpretation). To me, the intent is the fun of adventuring, and the game is more fun when the characters have a decent shot at survival; plus I want to reward reasonable risk-taking as I find "probe every bit of floor with a 10' pole" utterly boring. 2) D&D has always been my gateway at being the character in a fantasy novel. If Bilbo had been killed by those trolls near the beginning of The Hobbit, there wouldn't have been a story about him. So I think in my mind that's where the "PCs are special" mentality comes from. They are the star of the show; things don't always work for them the way they work for everyone else; and further, the stars of the show should be able to direct luck their way a bit more than normal (thus my use of action-point style rules that allow the avoidance of the worst of the random luck of the dice). [/QUOTE]

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