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<blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 8474562" data-attributes="member: 97077">I've stepped into your shoes. So has my Discord. We play a little game where we imagine what someone must think and know to have arrived at their position. The result of that analysis is that there is some ignoring of rules and obfuscating going on combined with an emotional response to defend a preference that doesn't need to be defended since it's not being attacked. This appears to be what is on display here.You're ruling uncertainty about how intimidating the orc is, for example, which isn't a task. It's description - color, flavor. You roll a d20 and you tell your players how intimidating the orc appears. You aren't resolving a task, you're randomizing the description of the environment. It's not an ability check in the way the rules support.Players determine how their characters act, think, and what they say. That's what the rules tell us. You might wish for a more &quot;powerful&quot; rule, but it doesn't get much more clear than that. You as DM don't get to say whether my character finds the orc intimidating. You can describe how intimidating the orc is. You might even use dice to determine that description. But the rules support there being no ability check here because there is no uncertainty as to how the PC responds - the player decides.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="iserith, post: 8474562, member: 97077"] I've stepped into your shoes. So has my Discord. We play a little game where we imagine what someone must think and know to have arrived at their position. The result of that analysis is that there is some ignoring of rules and obfuscating going on combined with an emotional response to defend a preference that doesn't need to be defended since it's not being attacked. This appears to be what is on display here. You're ruling uncertainty about how intimidating the orc is, for example, which isn't a task. It's description - color, flavor. You roll a d20 and you tell your players how intimidating the orc appears. You aren't resolving a task, you're randomizing the description of the environment. It's not an ability check in the way the rules support. Players determine how their characters act, think, and what they say. That's what the rules tell us. You might wish for a more "powerful" rule, but it doesn't get much more clear than that. You as DM don't get to say whether my character finds the orc intimidating. You can describe how intimidating the orc is. You might even use dice to determine that description. But the rules support there being no ability check here because there is no uncertainty as to how the PC responds - the player decides. [/QUOTE]

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