I'll give my opinion on this matter. For what it is worth. We gave up die rolling a long time ago for the most part. We use
Describe and Demonstrate. If you can describe it accurately or well, then that's good enough, if you can't then you can demonstrate it if speaking is not your thing or you prefer to empirically demonstrate what you are doing. Some people prefer to show rather than describe, or to mix methods, combing both techniques.
At any time a player can choose to use the dice in a given situation (or some method other than the dice, we use a few, and some situations require the dice or some other method because such situations can't really be emulated in real life), but they have to then live with the results and therefore rarely choose to do so.
Because it is entirely possible in most circumstances to have absolute control over your own actions, but there is very little chance to have much control over a random technique, like a die roll. That is simply an indisputable fact. You can control yourself and command your own actions,
you cannot control the dice or command them.
I suggest this though.
As an experimental technique.
Take any given situation where you (the character) are able to act and that can be resolved either by human action and/or thought, or by die roll. Then play that situation out several times using both methods, absolute role play and human problem solving techniques, versus rolling dice. Then decide for yourself which method, on average yields both the most innovative and the most consistently successful results to address whatever problem is described by the situation. (I will say this though, role playing most things requires a different kind of DM than a fella who resolves every situation by die roll, because in the case of the player handling his own problem solving it is the player who has great control over most situations and not the DM. Therefore as they get good at it expect a lot of real innovation on the part of your players, both tactically during the adventure, and strategically during the campaign or within the general setting. Thinking and role play inspires more and more innovation and creativity on the part of the player, and as a DM you just gotta expect that as a rule of operations.)
I don't think you'll have to conduct this experiment often to reach both a deductive and a statistical conclusion as to which yields the overall best results.
Now as I said it is not always possible to resolve every in-game situation without some resort to chance. But try that experiment and see which is not only the most successful method but also which is, generally speaking, the most fun for your players. I personally have never seen a player who once he realizes he can exercise his own problem solving skills and abilities to resolve a situation does not then suddenly become more and more eager to excel in doing so.
Now if a player wants to purposely play a dumb or incapable player then that's one thing (I've never seen it in real play, only stated as a theoretical intention that soon drops away in practice, but let's assume that intention is true as a role play matter) then let me just say this. That's perfectly fine, but let me echo a variation of a quote by Spock on the matter - "it is easier for a smart man to play dumb, than for a dumb man to play smart." In other words playing dumb and really being dumb are two different things. And as far as that goes intelligence has little to do, generally speaking, unless one has severe reasoning difficulties, with problem solving. I've often seen men who are or were considered very smart (many university professors I've known spring immediately to mind) who couldn't locate their rectum with both hands tied to the spot and given large research grants to investigate the matter, much less solve most of their real life problems. Or anyone else's real life problems for that matter. And I've seen, met, or read of guys considered dumb as dirt or not well educated (people like Henry Ford and Thomas Edison spring to mind, you wouldn't know most of the guys I know personally) who are extremely good problem solvers and who end up changing the whole world. And then again in-game I've often seen the guy with the lowest Intelligence score at the table consistently blurt out the most innovative solutions while his supposedly more "intelligent comrades" (if ability scores were the true measure of capability) looked on and said, "Bob, that's brilliant man."
So if a numerical intelligence score in a game is a measure of anything it very likely is not, as a practical matter, anything more than a Geek number in reality, and is infused with no more real substance than whatever the user chooses to infuse it with.
Anyway if you are empirically minded or simply just curious then try the experiment I outlined above.
See what kind of results you generate with your players.
And how they react to it.
One of my proposed house rules to get more description into the game is to give the PC a +1 bonus to the roll if the player describes what the character is doing without the use of game terms. Under a system where the description is a requirement instead of a bonus, how do you think a player should be "punished" for the lack of description? Automatic failure? A penalty to the roll determined by the DM?
On those occasions when we do use the dice I might very well use this as a variation of technique. Say a person is unsure of their action, or wants to rely upon the dice, but still wants to increase his odds of positively controlling a situation, then I might just allow him to give the best description or demonstration he can and then roll the dice at a bonus.
By the way, back to the main topic, last night I asked my wife and two daughters if they would be willing to play in a D&D or RP game with a character type who was a Lady. My oldest daughter, who already plays, said, "
I would as long as I still get to adventure and go places." I said, "no, it wouldn't interfere with your
female characters now, but it would add capabilities for doing things when you are at Constantinople or traveling somewhere." She said she liked that.
My youngest daughter and wife, when I got to them, said they liked the idea of
"being a Lady" and could they dress up like Princesses and have parties? I told em, "so you mean you intend to go to banquets, marry a guy, then spend most of his money on clothes? Sorta like real life then?"
"
Uh-huh."
"Yes, of course, but you would also get to hang around court and get into plots and have intrigue and maybe charm or hex people and on occasion even go on adventures."
"Oh,
I like that," they both said.
So at least the idea floats well as a trial balloon.
