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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7597706" data-attributes="member: 996">Well, &quot;skilled play,&quot; certainly.&nbsp; The game also simply neglected to model much beyond combat and spellcasting in any sort of consistent way until 3.0/d20 and skills/DCs/ranks, so you very often fell back on DM/player interaction and player ability as gauged by the DM as a resolution system.&nbsp; Rather than having a Passive Perception based on the character's ability, the DM would describe the room, carefully being certain to describe the clues that showed there was a trap there, and wait for the player to describe his investigation of the room in a way that either resulted in the trap being sprung, or being noticed.&nbsp; It was an art.&nbsp; You wanted to describe things just so, so that the player would kick himself /after/ he set off the trap, rather than just whine what an unfair killer game you ran. Similarly, while there were reaction adjustments for charisma, and a reaction check, that was about it, so interaction was primarily how well the player persuaded the DM that his character was being persuasive/intimidating/diplomatic.&nbsp; If you were good at convincing your DM, you didn't need CHA, if bad at it, no amount of CHA helped.Of course, there was a lively debate over how realistic it was to play a low-CHA character that way, rather than intentionally grounding it's every interaction (or the need to play dumb when your PC had a low INT, say) - but little on the other side of it, how you were supposed to play a very high INT or CHA 'right' if your own INT/CHA (as filtered through the DM) wasn't so high... ...really, the d20 skill system, borked class balance, diplomancers and all was a massive improvement over the classic game.&nbsp; Just night and day … well, blackest night and gloomy, stormy, wouldn't-go-out-if-I-was-you day.#goodoldaze</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 7597706, member: 996"] Well, "skilled play," certainly. The game also simply neglected to model much beyond combat and spellcasting in any sort of consistent way until 3.0/d20 and skills/DCs/ranks, so you very often fell back on DM/player interaction and player ability as gauged by the DM as a resolution system. Rather than having a Passive Perception based on the character's ability, the DM would describe the room, carefully being certain to describe the clues that showed there was a trap there, and wait for the player to describe his investigation of the room in a way that either resulted in the trap being sprung, or being noticed. It was an art. You wanted to describe things just so, so that the player would kick himself /after/ he set off the trap, rather than just whine what an unfair killer game you ran. Similarly, while there were reaction adjustments for charisma, and a reaction check, that was about it, so interaction was primarily how well the player persuaded the DM that his character was being persuasive/intimidating/diplomatic. If you were good at convincing your DM, you didn't need CHA, if bad at it, no amount of CHA helped. Of course, there was a lively debate over how realistic it was to play a low-CHA character that way, rather than intentionally grounding it's every interaction (or the need to play dumb when your PC had a low INT, say) - but little on the other side of it, how you were supposed to play a very high INT or CHA 'right' if your own INT/CHA (as filtered through the DM) wasn't so high... ...really, the d20 skill system, borked class balance, diplomancers and all was a massive improvement over the classic game. Just night and day … well, blackest night and gloomy, stormy, wouldn't-go-out-if-I-was-you day. #goodoldaze [/QUOTE]

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