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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 4806498" data-attributes="member: 2067">Strawman arguments and tautologies aren't really presenting much of a case against rules for role playing challenges, honestly.In my mind, it goes more like this, with newbies:Player 1: "We want Sir Gavin to give us his prize falcon."DM: "Okay, that's a Social Encounter. You need to roll your Social Skill against his Willpower, and beat him four times total. If you miss twice, you can't try and convince him any more. Go ahead and roll your Social Skill, use any of those skill powers you have, and tell me what you say. DC of 17."Player 1: "My grizzled fighter uses Veiled Threat with my Intimidate skill. 'You don't want to give us the falcon? It'd be a shame if something were to happen to your nice castle here, wouldn't it?' " *roll* "I beat him! With Veiled Threat that means he won't make a counter-argument until after my next roll."Player 2: "My smooth-tongued bard has Diplomacy, and I'll use Supporting Argument to help Player 4. If I beat him, Player 4 gets a +2 bonus to their roll for this. I know your CHA is lousy, dude. I say 'You know, Player 4's Character here is something of a powerful druid, and your falcon would be well cared for.' " *roll* "Easy as pie. +2, Player 4!"Player 3: "I've got Diplomacy too, but I'm just going to make a straight check. It's not quite as good as Player 2's Character, I'm just a cleric. I say something like 'Pretty please?' " *roll* "Aw, fark, I missed."Player 4: "Ech, yeah, my CHA still sucks with that +2....I've got Empathy, but that's really better with beasts...still, it's my highest....okay, rolling Empathy, and I because I'm a druid, can throw on the One of the Pack ability for free once an encounter, so I'll do that. If I win, his DC goes down by 2 the next round. Okay...I say... 'I love falcons just as much as you do!' " *roll* "Heh....well, the dice don't love me, either..."DM: So, Player 3, he just kind of raises an eyebrow at you, and Player 4, he says 'I am no fanatic, you rapacious thing!' But, Player 1, he's certainly too afraid of what you and your muscles might be able to do to his entire castle to bother upsetting you, and Player 2, he tells you that he believes your intentions are pure, but that 'you shouldn't rely on religious fundamentalists like druids to care for your precious possessions.' He's too cowed to try and argue back, but he's going to use Stubbornness and gain +2 to his DC. DC is now 19. Next round! You've just gotta beat him twice more, but he's being very stubborn...Player 1! Go!"...etc....Player input, variety, nonbinary design, unique contributions, set up, rising action, climax, slightly abstract while still letting creativity suffuse the details, but not requiring too many details to work....It's still pretty mathematical, with it's +2's, but other than rolling a dice, the only way to resolve things is DM fiat, which is not particularly engaging for extended use in a game, so we'll have to take some math and just make it as basic and simple and significant (non-fiddly) as possible. This is not anathema to roleplaying, but an aid to it, to encourage it, to devote resources to it, and to award things from it, without deviating from D&D's core concept of archetypal heroic fantasy (the druid had to treat the lord like an animal! the fighter was intimidating!), and without relying on arbitrary DM judgment calls or overly simple skill challenge systems that reduce everyone's challenge to "how can I convince the DM my highest skill bonus applies in THIS situation?". I can see people taking issue with it like I see people taking issue with hit points, but it works for what it does. It's not broken or impossible just because you want it a slightly different way. It's a little more on the abstract side that 4e combat is, while being significantly more concrete than 4e skill challenges, so it approaches that middle ground between overly complex (4e combat) and overly simple (4e skills). It gives you GAME effects that you can PLAY with rather than relying on player ability, thus enhancing your character's ability to be like your character (rather than like you as a player). I mean, I'm up for discussion of various methods, pros, and cons, where the line should be, etc, but assuming that rules for RP are absurd or that they cannot be done isn't very useful, especially without actual evidence and experience backing up your claims.</blockquote>

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