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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8475190" data-attributes="member: 6779196">I am not trying to say that you are reaching for rule zero. I am saying that I don’t believe there’s any point in arguing about what the rules permit the DM to do, because they permit anything. I say this as a defense against the repeated assertions that I’m claiming the rules disallow the DM from resolving actions taken to force a PC to make a particular decision by way of an ability check. I am not. I am only saying that I do not see anywhere in the rules where it is suggested that the DM ought to do so.Ah, ok, I see the confusion here. I too am arguing the premise as presented by [USER=71699]@clearstream[/USER] as a means of resolving the conflict with the “roleplaying rule.” They presented the argument that the “roleplaying rule” represents a dichotomy between roleplaying - wherein the player decides what their character thinks, says, and does - and mechanics, wherein the rules say what the PCs think, say, and do. They suggested that the DM has the authority to suspend roleplaying (as they are defining it here) in order to rule that an action made with the intent of forcing a PC to make a particular decision has an uncertain outcome. Rather than dispute the premise of this position, I argued it as presented, saying that I do not see a suggestion in the rules that the DM ought to “suspend roleplaying” in order to get around the “roleplaying rule.” Is that a bit clearer?I am not engaging in special pleading. My critique of the “suspending roleplaying” argument as presented is that the rules do not seem to suggest that the DM ever suspend roleplaying. On the contrary, the same rules state that roleplaying is involved in all parts of the game, so suspending it would seem to go against that. The only thing that’s “special” about actions made to force a PC to make a particular decision is that they are the only type of action that, as far as I can tell, would require the suspension of roleplaying in order to allow to have an uncertain outcome in the face of the “roleplaying rule.”Yes. This is and has always been my position.This is not so. In my reading, CHA checks are no different than any other ability check in that they can be used in what you call DM solo play. CHA checks are also no different than any other checks in that they cannot be used to force a player character to make a specific decision. My position treats all ability checks as equal in this.Charm Person imposes a specific exception to the “roleplaying rule.” It says that the affected character has the Charmed condition (which has specific rules that contradict the roleplaying rule) and it says that the charmed creature treats the caster as a friendly acquaintance - again, a contradiction of the roleplaying rule, assuming the charmed creature is a PC.I don’t think we’ll be able to agree on this, because I can’t fathom how one could conflate what someone knows with what someone thinks. Knowledge is information a person has access to. Thought is mental manipulation of information. The roleplaying rule, as I read it, says that the player gets to decide what to do with information they have access to (“decide what the character thinks”). Character knowledge is independent of this. To trot out a very tired example, a player may think they know that fire stops a troll’s regeneration, and the roleplaying rule allows them to decide that their character thinks that as well. But, if the DM is using a custom stat block for a troll that gains temporary hit points when it takes fire damage or whatever, then what the player has decided the character thinks clearly does not line up with reality; they do not actually know that the troll’s regeneration will be stopped by fire damage (because it won’t). They can declare some action with the intent of gaining this information, such as thinking back to their grandfather’s stories of trolls to try and remember if they have any special weaknesses. The outcome of this would probably be uncertain, or at least, the roleplaying rule does not preclude it’s uncertainty, because it says the player decides what the character thinks, not what they know.For the reasons above, I don’t believe any of these “issues” are a thing if we assume the roleplaying rule are actually a thing. You seem to be stating that they are issues with my interpretation, and then accuse me of engaging in special pleading when I demonstrate why they are not.</blockquote>

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