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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GnomeWorks" data-source="post: 5867673" data-attributes="member: 162">The dichotomy at the heart of your distinction, I think, is that of player skill vs. character skill.In my mind, task resolution is solely in the realm of character skill. Whether you as a player have, say, a Strength of 3 or 18 is irrelevant to me - what is relevant is that the character in question has a 12. This distinction is, in D&D, often only brought up in combat situations, but it should also be brought up in social encounters, as well. The incredibly shy introvert should be able to play the character with a Cha 18 as well as the guy who has no musculature to speak of can play the Str 18 character. This answers your question as to whether or not players should be allowed to "talk it out" with their DM in regards to task resolution: the answer, so far as I am concerned, should be a resounding "no."The questions you have to ask yourself, in answering something like this, are thus: what does the die-rolling represent? What does the final result represent? What is the advantage in leaving some things to chance?D&D 3e gave us an incredibly powerful tool, the concept of "taking 10." And I don't mean powerful in the sense that it is useful in-game, I mean that it is powerful from a game design approach. The ability to take 10 essentially means that a character that is X good at a skill or ability will reliably be X good at that skill, which is represented by their take 10 on said skill. It removes the random aspect from skill use, allowing players to say that their character is good at certain things, and that statement is actually true.The problem I have with standard d20 task resolution is that you are always using that base d20, then adding modifiers. The range of a d20 is ridiculous, given the DCs generally presented (I'm using 3.5 as a baseline here). You are statistically just as likely to "critically succeed" as you are to "critically fail" as you are to get an average result. To me, that doesn't make sense and doesn't cohere with what I see in the real world.What I see in the real world is that people with X level of skill will generally produce results within a reasonable deviation of X. That is to say, in a d20+X task resolution system, most results in the real world seem to be within a few points of d20+X. Sometimes they do a little better, sometimes they do a little worse, but are generally around that area. It is when they try something drastically new that they don't fall in that area - that's where it becomes rather hit-or-miss.Resorting to dice should be an active choice made by the player, reflecting the decision of the character to try a new approach to whatever activity is being performed at the moment. The option to "take 10" should, in my opinion, be available basically whenever - not a special thing that can be done when not under pressure, but as a representation of the character relying on tried and tested methods for whatever is relevant, be it a skill check, saving throw, or even attack roll. It is only in deviation from what the character knows to work that dice should be invoked.The idea of "talking it out" with the DM, of using narration for task resolution, is IMO completely diametrically opposed to the idea of playing a character. You are suddenly relying upon the player's ability to describe what the character is doing, rather than the character's abilities. Then relying upon the DM's ad hoc judgment of whether or not that is good enough to accomplish the goals of the pseudo-check in question. I realize that in D&D this is a common occurrence for social situations, but I doubt that it needs to be that way, and is in stark contrast to how combat and skill resolution is handled (again, at least in 3.5). You are rewarding characters that may or may not have any business accomplishing what is being described because their player happens to be good at description and/or convincing the DM, which utterly breaks immersion.</blockquote>

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