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<blockquote data-quote="LostSoul" data-source="post: 5432376" data-attributes="member: 386">I'll take a shot at this.I think Hussar's example shows why this happens.&nbsp; It doesn't matter if you have a spoon or a set of thieves' tools when you want to pick a lock.&nbsp; Great - that allows players to get really creative in their interpretation of what happens in the game world!That's only as long as the players get creative.&nbsp; What happens when players don't?&nbsp; Nothing.&nbsp; Resolution is exactly the same - make a Thievery check.&nbsp; The game doesn't care how your character opens that lock.&nbsp; That means that actions in the game world aren't part of the currency of the game.That's not actually the case - the procedure for making skill checks requires the player to describe the character's action in the game world.&nbsp; However, the game will still work if the player simply says, &quot;I make a Thievery check.&quot;&nbsp; I think the game suffers when this happens, and steps should have been taken to make sure it didn't (or happened as rarely as possible).

This is why 3E required thieves tools - it encoded fictional causes into the rules.&nbsp; That's not necessary, in my opinion, because you have a DM.&nbsp; And because you have a DM to make those kinds of judgement calls, I think it's better to rely on that person, their authority, and creativity instead of rules.&nbsp; Rules can create strange corner-cases and are subject to lawyering.This habit really shows up in combat, where players (in my experience) usually describe their characters actions in two ways: moving miniatures around a battlemap and declaring the name of their Power in their attack (or other rules constructs, like Second Wind).&nbsp; Both of these are artefacts of the real word, not the imagined world, and the imagined world's &quot;reality&quot; suffers as a result.In my 4E (hack), I know that dropping the battlemap really drew the entire group into the imagined game world.That's my guess at why this happens, based on weekly play of 4E - save for a six month or so period where I spent time hacking the game to address this.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="LostSoul, post: 5432376, member: 386"] I'll take a shot at this. I think Hussar's example shows why this happens. It doesn't matter if you have a spoon or a set of thieves' tools when you want to pick a lock. Great - that allows players to get really creative in their interpretation of what happens in the game world! That's only as long as the players get creative. What happens when players don't? [i]Nothing.[/i] Resolution is exactly the same - make a Thievery check. The game doesn't care how your character opens that lock. That means that actions in the game world aren't part of the currency of the game. [indent]That's not actually the case - the procedure for making skill checks requires the player to describe the character's action in the game world. However, the game will still work if the player simply says, "I make a Thievery check." I think the game suffers when this happens, and steps should have been taken to make sure it didn't (or happened as rarely as possible). This is why 3E required thieves tools - it encoded fictional causes into the rules. That's not necessary, in my opinion, because you have a DM. And because you have a DM to make those kinds of judgement calls, I think it's better to rely on that person, their authority, and creativity instead of rules. Rules can create strange corner-cases and are subject to lawyering.[/indent] This habit really shows up in combat, where players (in my experience) usually describe their characters actions in two ways: moving miniatures around a battlemap and declaring the name of their Power in their attack (or other rules constructs, like Second Wind). Both of these are artefacts of the real word, not the imagined world, and the imagined world's "reality" suffers as a result. In my 4E (hack), I know that dropping the battlemap really drew the entire group into the imagined game world. That's my guess at why this happens, based on weekly play of 4E - save for a six month or so period where I spent time hacking the game to address this. [/QUOTE]

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