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<blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7598311" data-attributes="member: 97077">In my view, &quot;should&quot; is a problematic word in a imaginary world of sword and sorcery based on childhood games of make-believe. For every &quot;should&quot; you can come up with, I can come up with a whole lot more &quot;could's,&quot; &quot;might's,&quot; &quot;may's,&quot; and &quot;can's&quot; to explain anything, anytime. That's the beauty of games based on imagination.The game, and here I'm referring to D&amp;D 5e (if not other games), sets no limits on whether an action declaration is valid or not. It tasks the DM with judging the outcome of that action. But it's otherwise up to the player to determine how the character acts and thinks and what it says. If the DM wants Gary to portray Plunk in a particular way, perhaps according to Plunk's personal characteristics, the incentive the DM has for that is Inspiration. The decisions Gary has to make in a challenge in order to earn that Inspiration may raise or lower the difficulty of the challenge. But make no mistake, Gary is the one being challenged whether he's taking advantage of Plunk's character options or not.What Plunk &quot;should&quot; do is nothing the DM ever needs to worry about in my view, provided Gary is otherwise making choices that are fun for everyone and helping to create an exciting, memorable story. And if someone is the sort of person who is not having fun because Gary is not making decisions according to what that person thinks a low-Intelligence barbarian is capable of thinking, saying, and doing, then it might be worth examining if the problem is someone other than Gary.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="iserith, post: 7598311, member: 97077"] In my view, "should" is a problematic word in a imaginary world of sword and sorcery based on childhood games of make-believe. For every "should" you can come up with, I can come up with a whole lot more "could's," "might's," "may's," and "can's" to explain anything, anytime. That's the beauty of games based on imagination. The game, and here I'm referring to D&D 5e (if not other games), sets no limits on whether an action declaration is valid or not. It tasks the DM with judging the [I]outcome[/I] of that action. But it's otherwise up to the player to determine how the character acts and thinks and what it says. If the DM wants Gary to portray Plunk in a particular way, perhaps according to Plunk's personal characteristics, the incentive the DM has for that is Inspiration. The decisions Gary has to make in a challenge in order to earn that Inspiration may raise or lower the difficulty of the challenge. But make no mistake, Gary is the one being challenged whether he's taking advantage of Plunk's character options or not. What Plunk "should" do is nothing the DM ever needs to worry about in my view, provided Gary is otherwise making choices that are fun for everyone and helping to create an exciting, memorable story. And if someone is the sort of person who is not having fun because Gary is not making decisions according to what [I]that person[/I] thinks a low-Intelligence barbarian is capable of thinking, saying, and doing, then it might be worth examining if the problem is someone other than Gary. [/QUOTE]

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