What ever happened to "role playing?"

[milotha]

So, um, consider me dense. Are you agreeing with me or disagreeing with me? I completely agree with you that it should be a middle ground, but I think we might disagree on what exactly constitutes a middle ground. I don't think many people would try to argue that you should get to hit the monster in combat without rolling for it just because you described your attack really well, but there seems to be some feeling that, in important areas, this is okay with interpersonal skills.

Note: I don't force diplomacy rolls every time someone opens their mouth. That's not what the skill is for. The skill is specifically for attempting to influence the attitudes of others towards you just by personality. If you save the life of the king's daughter, you don't need to make a skill check to improve his attitude toward you. Or, heck, you can, and if you can get better than 3, it improves. If you have hard evidence of an assassination plot, you don't need to roll Diplomacy to prove it when you show your evidence to the law -- or again, you roll it with a "don't roll a 1", unless the guy you're showing it to is already inclined to mistrust you. Interpersonal skills can easily be misused.

The main reason I'm continuing this is that I sense something disturbing in what you're saying. I'm not saying that it's wrong, but it's different from what I do, and I want to explore it. Your attitude, grossly oversimplified in this example, seems to be:

- I act out the situation, and then I hope that the dice don't mess up my roleplaying.

I prefer the other method: I roll the dice first, and then I roleplay the result. Just like I'd change my flavor-text if I described an attack and then rolled a "1", I consider "describing the way in which I botch something" to be an incredibly important aspect of roleplaying. In my philosophy, if roleplaying only means "describing how I succeed", then that's not really roleplaying. You are playing the role of somebody, and sometimes that somebody screws up a check or roll, and, for anyone who believes roleplaying to be important, faithfully characterizing the flavor of a really bad roll is just as important as faithfully charactering what this character's version of a natural 20 looks like.

By the same token, if a player complains to me that his Fighter can't be the dashing swashbuckler that he visualized because I won't let him fudge skill checks in order to do acrobatic stuff in combat, then my response is that the player did a bad job of translating his character concept into a D&D character class. I'd rather revamp his character as a Fighter/Rogue, a swashbuckling Fighter variant from UA, or even just a fighter with a lower Strength, a Higher Dex and Int, and more skills, some of them cross-class. After all, I wouldn't fudge the rules to let his fighter character throw blasts of fire from his hands, even if it was an integral part of his character concept. I'd suggest that he take a couple of sorcerer levels.

What are your feelings about this?

I think we disagree on the method, and perhaps this boils down to the fact that I've played a lot of 1e and 2e. In these systems, without the social skills rules, we would just sit down and role play out the situations. I guess I gamed with a bunch of really talented gamers. No one ever really had a problem with this approach. We all pretty much had strong character backgrounds, good character concepts and a good grasp of how our characters would handle the situation. This added the role playing side to D&D for me. Not only that, but it was a blast. We all strongly remember the role playing parts of the adventures. There was very minimal dice rolling beyond NPC reaction checks for those the GM hadn't predetermined. Did this mean that we succeeded every time - No! But it did mean that our actions were used as a basis for determining if we succeeded. Good role playing, creative ideas, and good fast talk were rewarded. If you had designed up an intelligent charismatic character and role played it as a social character, then the GM was more likely to allow you to succeed. If you were a big dumb uncharismatic type, then you were less likely to succeed.

This mentality encourages an active voice for the players.

Consider combat. Most of the GMs I'v played with allow you to describe your actions, and then you role a die in combat and you see how it went. Sometimes we are fairly creative often doing things completely outside the rules, other times using combinations of the rules. Eitherway, we describe what we try to do, and then let the dice determine our success. I agree that you can't hit with your sword, get your spell off, or succeed everytime.

Now consider 3.X social skills. I have two groups of players that I've gamed with. One set, I've played all editions with, and newer groups that I've joined.

In the older group that I game with, we've continued with our previous method of role playing out situations. Sometimes we then role the dice. (This depends on how important a situation we are dealing with.) Except now, we have hefty modifiers onto the results of the die roles based on the role playing. The GM determines how the NPCs respond based on the dice roles. Yes, we have characters that will intentionally sabotage their success. That's part of the fun. In addition, we have a sliding scale of success DCs. As in on a DC5 the following level of success happens, on a DC 10 we get a slightly better level of sucess, etc on up. I find this method encourages an active voice for the players. It allows the social skills to still be useful and encourages role playing. I don't have any complaints about this group, we've reached a happy medium for this set of players.

In the newer groups all of the social skill uses go like this: example: I attempt to role play out bluffing someone. The GM then makes me roll without regard to what I actually said. You either succeed or fail. If it was a DC 25, then the DC stays at 25. The GM had set in stone what the DC was before I ever even opened my mouth. This doesn't encourage role playing. This doesn't encourage creative tactics. It just encourages dice rolling. I don't find this fun. I think the quashes the role playing aspect of D&D. After a while, I've realized that no one is role playing in these games. They are just dice rolling. This mentality encourages a passive voice for the players, and these games are less fun for me and for the other players.

The few players that we have brought into our older gaming group over the last couple of years have all told us that they love our style of play. That it's the most fun they have ever had. Why, because our group encourages an active voice for the players. It makes you feel like you had an effect on the situation rather than just a mechanical roll it out game.

I haven't been trying to make this an arguement that there is something wrong with people who don't want to role play. I've been trying to argue that there are people who like to role play and the current system is discouraging them from doing what they enjoy. If you have players that have fun role playing, why not reward them for it.

Anyway, I think there are many GMs out there who can't see how poorly they are using the social skills, and how they are discouraging role playing. Not that they've read to the end of this post anyway.

 

[WizarDru]

1) Forcing everything into a die roll to resolve a social situation isn't fun for some players.

2) Allowing the players to do any social skill without resorting to any die rolls isn't fun for some players either.

Fixed those for you.

Seriously, this is a taste issue, IMHO. I have had some players who consider social situations to be a distraction to the main game, and I have had players who consider combat something that interrupts the narrative flow. Overall, most of my players like BOTH aspects.

However, the system needs to allow verisimilitude to a point, while at the same time presenting a balanced system. A big problem I had with 1e is that, since the rules didn't cover so many topics, a player had the potential to, as takyris descirbes 'game the system'. In short, they could use metagame knowledge to bypass some of the games built-in restrictions. This sort of thing can be seen constantly in 'Knights of the Dinner Table'. Some folks enjoyed that aspect of 1e, which can alternately be viewed as a greater deal of freedom within the system. I take the opposite view, that it encouraged less-scrupulous players to try and outwit the system, so to speak.

Does a middle ground exist? Of course it does. It existed under 1e, and it is better codified in 3e, and it's the system I traditionally use. The biggest difference is that under 1e, it was just "I'll give you a +2 bonus on the NPC reaction table for mentioning his brother" to "I'll give you a circumstance modifier of +4 to your Bluff check for reminding him about the orphanage."

I personally would never accept a 'I bluff him' request, without a clarification (i.e. "I try to trick him into thinking I'm his long lost cousin"). Some players are more interested or less interested in actually playing the encounter out, but 3e/3.5e doesn't discourage such play more than previous editions. Under previous editions, it mostly DM fiat, usually solely based on Charisma for most occasions. There was certainly no consistency from one DM's game to the next...I saw both sides of the coin in my time, where good acting got me bonuses and where my stats were the sole arbiters of such reactions. And then, of course, was the truly old-school style, where nothing could change the interactions, as they were virtually scripted. Social encounters were merely a means to an end, a way to move you to the dungeon; look at the gnome encounter in L1? (Tsocjanth), for example. The gnomes are a binary event: treat them one way, they do X. Treat them another way, they do Y. Naturally, the DM had the option of playing the encounter any way he choose, but as written, the social encounter is not really very social at all.

I've been trying to argue that there are people who like to role play and the current system is discouraging them from doing what they enjoy. If you have players that have fun role playing, why not reward them for it.

I guess I'm not seeing how it's discouraging them. For the first time, we actually have a codified system to cover social interactions, and we even have an honest to goodness mechanic to match player acting with character action (namely the circumstance modifier). Couple this with DM XP bonuses for good playing, and you have a system.

The flip side of this coin, of course, is to ask why players who are more gregarious or boisterous should get XP bonuses than more reserved players? I see the answer that these are DM-player issues to be resolved within each group, not something the rules system should impose.

It strikes me that perhaps some folks feel that 3e/3.5e encourages a playstyle they don't enjoy, when perhaps the truth is that it doesn't encourage the playstyle they favor, and really doesn't directly advocate a specific playstyle at all, other than in the most general sense. Of course, an equal number of folks certainly don't like the style of play that 3e promotes, even in the general sense...and that's fine, too.

 

[Psion]

My point is this. It is a two sided coin. As I've stated before:

1) Forcing everything into a die roll to resolve a social situation isn't fun for the players. This is especially annoying with the small number of skill points, high DCs, social skills as cross class skills, large number of skills and the high degree of randomness of a single d20. It crushes creative role playing, and turns the game into "I attempt to bluff" - rolls die.

2) Allowing the players to do any social skill without resorting to any die rolls isn't fun for the players either. This isn't fair to the players that aren't charismatic (or intelligent and/or wise for that manner too). Just because the player is this way, doesn't make the character that way. Sadly, I've seen to many GMs lately turn the game into roll playing in an attempt to prevent this. As I've said, this is extremely boring to me.

There has to be a middle ground. So, players - please role play your characters, and GMs encourage creativity and reward it with a lowered DC or graduated levels of success for the social skills.

*applause and cat-calls*

Just so. I am die-hard adherent of "role then roll". "Roll then role" does't work for me. Rolling good on the dice won't make the role-playing good, and roleplaying can have a bona-fide impact on the game, so you may have to revise the results of your roll, anyway. AFAIAC, it just comes naturally as part of the games resolution system. Just like combat: player describes what they do, then rolls (when prompted by the DM), and the DM decides what happens based on things the DM only knows (be that combat statistics like AC and DR, or personality points like attitude and motivation.)

 

[Psion]

- I act out the situation, and then I hope that the dice don't mess up my roleplaying.

I prefer the other method: I roll the dice first, and then I roleplay the result

I see this totally the other way. It seems to me that rolling first and then roleplaying, you are far more likely to invalidate your roll. Players are more random than dice.

The "middle ground" as he seems to be explaining it (and I agree with) is that by the time you make that roll, the DM will have factored in any pertinent points of the roleplaying into the DC. What you do and say should have a very real result on the outcome of a roll. If you choose to appeal to a character's motivation, for example, your chances are much better that you will prevail. But after the roll, the roleplaying continues, reflecting the outcome of the roll (and roleplaying). The roll is just a decision point amidst the roleplaying.

Now perhaps your problem is that you think that the result of the roll would be reflected in the tenor of the roleplaying. (FWIW, my players, though perhaps jokingly at times, DO this with their skill checks. For example, if they fail a spot check abysmally they rationalize what happened with quips like "I'm over tending to my horse." Which is great AFAIAC.) And that's a fair point. I sort of think I try to have it both ways as far as this goes.

Let me explain, starting with explaining my perception of the role of the DM and the skill system. AFAIAC, the characters eyes and ears, in fact the whole interface with the world, are the skill system (and other aspects of the system). The DM provides descriptions of what is going on in the world in terms as the character perceives them. For example, if the character fails a spot check, the DM might so "your eyes comb the landscape, but you see no signs of your pursuers."

I see social skills in the same light. The DM must, using the system, translate character intentions into game reality. When the player roleplays something, they are, from my viewpoint, expressing their intention. The actuality may be quite different. How many times have you thought up something charming to say (for example, to sooth tensions with a spouse or lover) and it turned out totally different than you intended? Guess what -- that is, to me, the moment you made a bad dice roll.

It could be similar in a game. If a player comes ups to an NPC and appeals to their poverty with a flash of gold in order to get them to do something for them, the roll might be pretty easy. But a failed roll might mean that the character did not come off the way that they intended -- for example, presented themselves in a manner that seemed threatening to the PC.

Also, the results of a random roll in the game often reflect things that are not explicitly planned. In real life, there is probably a non-random reason for many things that we randomize in the game... like getting in a car wreck because you weren't paying attention because someone made you really angry on a message board because thay called you a name that due to your childhood you are really sensitive too, etc. Random things aren't really truly random, but often reflect things that you do not perceive or control.

So the reason that a diplomacy session (or almost any skill use) goes awry might have nothing to do with quantum level random variations, but rather, things that the players just don't see. Like, the NPC is having a bad day, or you reminded him of a sensitive situation or person, or he doesn't like people wielding rapiers -- or whatever. Minute details finer than it is productive to actually track in the game.

Well, I've blathered long enough, but I do hope I have explained my stance without rubbing anyone the wrong way. If your method works for you and your players, have a blast with it. The only reason I am drawn to respond in this way is because I absolutely do not feel that having social skills makes roleplaying defunct, and further, I think it can make it more interesting and provide results that I can play off of to make the game still more interesting.

 

[milotha]

I see this totally the other way. It seems to me that rolling first and then roleplaying, you are far more likely to invalidate your roll. Players are more random than dice.

The "middle ground" as he seems to be explaining it (and I agree with) is that by the time you make that roll, the DM will have factored in any pertinent points of the roleplaying into the DC. What you do and say should have a very real result on the outcome of a roll. If you choose to appeal to a character's motivation, for example, your chances are much better that you will prevail. But after the roll, the roleplaying continues, reflecting the outcome of the roll (and roleplaying). The roll is just a decision point amidst the roleplaying.

Now perhaps your problem is that you think that the result of the roll would be reflected in the tenor of the roleplaying. (FWIW, my players, though perhaps jokingly at times, DO this with their skill checks. For example, if they fail a spot check abysmally they rationalize what happened with quips like "I'm over tending to my horse." Which is great AFAIAC.) And that's a fair point. I sort of think I try to have it both ways as far as this goes.

Let me explain, starting with explaining my perception of the role of the DM and the skill system. AFAIAC, the characters eyes and ears, in fact the whole interface with the world, are the skill system (and other aspects of the system). The DM provides descriptions of what is going on in the world in terms as the character perceives them. For example, if the character fails a spot check, the DM might so "your eyes comb the landscape, but you see no signs of your pursuers."

I see social skills in the same light. The DM must, using the system, translate character intentions into game reality. When the player roleplays something, they are, from my viewpoint, expressing their intention. The actuality may be quite different. How many times have you thought up something charming to say (for example, to sooth tensions with a spouse or lover) and it turned out totally different than you intended? Guess what -- that is, to me, the moment you made a bad dice roll.

It could be similar in a game. If a player comes ups to an NPC and appeals to their poverty with a flash of gold in order to get them to do something for them, the roll might be pretty easy. But a failed roll might mean that the character did not come off the way that they intended -- for example, presented themselves in a manner that seemed threatening to the PC.

Also, the results of a random roll in the game often reflect things that are not explicitly planned. In real life, there is probably a non-random reason for many things that we randomize in the game... like getting in a car wreck because you weren't paying attention because someone made you really angry on a message board because thay called you a name that due to your childhood you are really sensitive too, etc. Random things aren't really truly random, but often reflect things that you do not perceive or control.

So the reason that a diplomacy session (or almost any skill use) goes awry might have nothing to do with quantum level random variations, but rather, things that the players just don't see. Like, the NPC is having a bad day, or you reminded him of a sensitive situation or person, or he doesn't like people wielding rapiers -- or whatever. Minute details finer than it is productive to actually track in the game.

Well, I've blathered long enough, but I do hope I have explained my stance without rubbing anyone the wrong way. If your method works for you and your players, have a blast with it. The only reason I am drawn to respond in this way is because I absolutely do not feel that having social skills makes roleplaying defunct, and further, I think it can make it more interesting and provide results that I can play off of to make the game still more interesting.

Yes, I agree completely.

Now, on to my original point that the game has turned into roll playing.

There are GMs out there that:
1) Do not alter the DC as a result of the role playing or give extremely minor bonuses. (As I've been saying, this doesn't reward creative play.)
2) Set the DCs at absurdly high levels - (sometimes to the point of railroading the players by default. I'll make the DC for this diplomacy check a 50, so they will have to end up in combat everytime.)
3) Make every action that they don't want you to take require a roll on the dice. - I attempt to get a beer in the bar. Let's set that at a DC 15 diplomacy check. Oh look I rolled a 7 and I only have +5 in diplomacy, I guess I can't order. Give me a break.
4) Make all social skills checks an all or nothing result. As per the above,
5) The higher your skill gets, the higher the DCs get for the same actions.
6) Require a roll for every trivial action.

This combined with:
1) The low number of skill points the PCs get.
2) The high number of skills to take.
3) The sudden addition of skills that you now have no ranks in when a new supplement comes out.
4) The high variability of the d20 role, which is just as likely to roll a 1 as it is to roll a 10.
5) Many of these are cross class skills.

Can reduce the game down into a frustrating exercise in roll playing. Do you really need to make the players make a diplomacy roll everytime they interact with someone. Do you need to make them make a sense motive roll, if it's obvious the person is lying.

Now, if roll playing is your thing and everyone in the group doesn't want anything more than thak. Ok. I would probably find the game boring. But if you have people who are trying to role play, don't just use the mechanic to squash them. If they are being creative, funny, and interactive with your world, where is the harm in that? Shouldn't you be encouraging this in your players? When did role playing become a bad word.

Here's the GM logic I've seen. Player x is role playing and I give them a bonus to their actions based on the role playing. Player y is not role playing, so he gets no bonuses. That's unfair to player y, so I won't give bonuses. I'm arguing that this is unfair to player x who put out the extra effort and endeavored to make the game more fun and interactive.

 

[takyris]

Morning, everybody! (my time)

To the folks who prefer role-then-roll to roll-then-role (namely Bendris, Milotha, and Psion): do-able. I've got people who like it both ways in my game, and I don't force either method. So, in that respect, I was talking without thinking.

My personal preference is, now that I think about it honestly, sort of a middle ground -- I say, for a given Bluff check, "This is a bluff check to convince him that XXXX", where XXXX is something I've just thought of, and then I roll, and then I play it. I have no problem with roleplaying it and then rolling it. I do have a problem with roleplaying it, rolling it, and then, if the roll doesn't work, complaining that it should have worked anyway because it makes logical sense. Since that's not what you guys are suggesting here, I don't think we really disagree.

Bendris, though, you said, "It seems to change the game from improvisational to script-reading." I don't entirely agree -- I actually did entirely agree when I incorrectly read what you wrote as "change the game to improvisational script-reading". You don't get complete creative freedom when describing your interactions with NPCs in combat, and now that social skills are integrated into the game with a codified ruleset, it seems reasonable to me that you don't get complete freedom when describing your interactions with them when attempting to meaningfully affect the course of the game through personality alone (as opposed to when you've got hard facts and evidence about something and don't need to convince them through persuasiveness, when you're just asking a simple informational question, or other "no rolls necessary" situations). And I personally enjoy looking at the roll and thinking, "Okay, how would Karok the Merciless play a Diplomacy roll of 7?" But that is just me, and doesn't have to be the situation for everyone. It's equally valid to make your case, roll, see that the roll sucks, and then jokingly say that your character was drooling or making shifty eye movements or stuttering nervously while trying to be suave. Or basically, all the good stuff Psion said about "intention versus result", with the comments about "trying to say charming thing to significant other versus result of what you said to significant other" being taken especially well this morning.

Milotha, you wrote "But it did mean that our actions were used as a basis for determining if we succeeded. Good role playing, creative ideas, and good fast talk were rewarded." You were describing the good old days, but in my opinion, you could just as easily be describing things today. It's unfortunate that you've had a bummer of a time with your 3.x group, but, having not been there, I don't really know how to judge that situation -- you could be describing it accurately, or your DM could have been altering things but not telling you. I can tell you that the system works better for me.

For instance, your statement that "No matter what I say, the DC stays the same" is not actually true according to the rules. Bluffing someone with something they want to hear or are predisposed to believe carries a +5 bonus. Bluffing them with something utterly ludicrous carries a -30 penalty -- and note that I've played in a game where a high-level bard actually got one of the ludicrious bluffs off successfully. If your DM kept the DC at 25 no matter what you said, then your DM was not reading the rules correctly.

The "This was how it worked in my group, but then, we were all really good roleplayers" statement is probably not one that we want to get started on, because it carries an implicit "And if you disagree with me, it stands to reason that your group doesn't have good roleplayers," and I don't think that's something we can usefully debate.

Again, I bring up the notion of roleplaying as tied into character creation. You might be roleplaying a persuasive fast-talker just wonderfully, but if your character sheet says "Charisma 9", then I personally don't believe that you're doing a good job of roleplaying that character very well. If you want to roleplay a persuasive fast-talker who always has a quip ready (and if you want to have it affect the game and not just be almost-out-of-character side comments), you need to put a better score into Charisma and you need to put some ranks into a specific skill. If you don't -- if you make Charisma your dump stat -- then your DM is quite right to not let your personal roleplaying effectively negate your character's worst score, just like your Int-6 half-orc barbarian shouldn't be solving complex algebraic equations to solve the riddle of the haunted temple. When I make a swashbuckling fast-talker (say, a melee-combat-oriented fighter/rogue), I usually make Wisdom my dump stat, taking a penalty on Will saves, Spot checks, and Sense Motive checks instead. I do this because I want to be able to roleplay my character as being persuasive and charming, and I want to have good bonuses on my Bluff and Diplomacy checks. I am taking a numeric penalty in one area in order to get a numeric bonus in another area, and to accurately reflect the character that I want to roleplay. If I wanted to roleplay someone who was charming and wise and agile and strong and smart and hale & hearty, then (assuming Point Buy) I'd either give him decent-but-not-great scores everywhere in order to avoid having a dump stat, or I'd ask the DM if I could play a character with more points to spend than the other players, and if the character could start one level behind everyone else.

It seems, from what you've said here, that the problem is not with the system. The problem seems to be that you want to roleplay your character in a certain way when his relevant abilities and skills do not necessarily support playing him in that manner. That's not a problem with the system. That's a problem with your build. Building a character which accurately reflects the person you want to roleplay, and which gives you the numerical abilities to do what you want to say your character does, is quite a bit different in 3e.

 

[Talmun]

Players are more random than dice.

Now that ought to be someone's sig.

 

[Henry]

There are GMs out there that:
1) Do not alter the DC as a result of the role playing or give extremely minor bonuses. (As I've been saying, this doesn't reward creative play.)
2) Set the DCs at absurdly high levels - (sometimes to the point of railroading the players by default. I'll make the DC for this diplomacy check a 50, so they will have to end up in combat everytime.)
3) Make every action that they don't want you to take require a roll on the dice. - I attempt to get a beer in the bar. Let's set that at a DC 15 diplomacy check. Oh look I rolled a 7 and I only have +5 in diplomacy, I guess I can't order. Give me a break.
4) Make all social skills checks an all or nothing result. As per the above,
5) The higher your skill gets, the higher the DCs get for the same actions.
6) Require a roll for every trivial action.

In my view, these are BAD DM's; at best, they're inexperienced. And yes, this could possibly follow Godwin's Law, though I'm not about to say that it does.

This combined with:
3) The sudden addition of skills that you now have no ranks in when a new supplement comes out.

Hopefully, people won't be releasing new skills - that's something WotC discourages strongly, though 2rd parties can do what they like; it's established by the creators of 3E that new feats are OK, but new skills are a BAD IDEA, exactly for this reason.

Do you really need to make the players make a diplomacy roll everytime they interact with someone. Do you need to make them make a sense motive roll, if it's obvious the person is lying.

Rightly not; in the case of sensing motive, even someone with a single rank in sense motive could tell and obvious lie (though I might have a character with a wisdom penalty roll to tell it, for obvious reasons).

...if you have people who are trying to role play, don't just use the mechanic to squash them. If they are being creative, funny, and interactive with your world, where is the harm in that? Shouldn't you be encouraging this in your players?

No harm at all, and in fact beneficial. I have BOTH players who prefer combat and character advancement, AND players who love in-depth role-assumption.

When did role playing become a bad word.

It's not a bad word, but it's also not the goal for all players, either, and should not be assumed to be so. Some players just like fighting the good fight, and expecting that sum of XP's and treasure on the other side of the hardship, and prefer this to a combat computer game because of the social interaction with friends. I cater to both best I can, and I think I strike a pretty good balance in my group. (At least they seem to say so).

Here's the GM logic I've seen. Player x is role playing and I give them a bonus to their actions based on the role playing. Player y is not role playing, so he gets no bonuses. That's unfair to player y, so I won't give bonuses. I'm arguing that this is unfair to player x who put out the extra effort and endeavored to make the game more fun and interactive.

I agree, as long as we agree to keep the die rolls in there without penalty for the person who can't character-assume their way out of a sack, and give bonuses to those who can.

 

[WizarDru]

Now, on to my original point that the game has turned into roll playing.

There are GMs out there that:

Understood. But those all look like examples of poor DMing, and not a fault of the system, per se. In fact, some of those examples go counter to recommendations from the DMG, although I don't have the book in front of me at the moment. Several of those, while I'm sure happen, are just plain silly. Others are clearly a matter of taste.

To me, it's a question of game relevance. Ordering an ale? Usually not a problem. Ordering an ale when you're a drow in a tavern run by an intolerant half-elf who's father was enslaved and eventually murdered by the Drow? That would require a check. DCs scaling for the same task is just plain bad DM-ing, usually by someone who's inexperienced.

If they are being creative, funny, and interactive with your world, where is the harm in that? Shouldn't you be encouraging this in your players? When did role playing become a bad word.

If everyone's on the same page, then by all means, it's a great idea. But this agains comes down to playstyles. If you have a classic 'Gygaxian' player, who wants to boot the door, kill the monster and loot it, he's going to have different wants than a player who is looking for an indepth political game, or someone looking for a merger of the two.

I'm arguing that this is unfair to player x who put out the extra effort and endeavored to make the game more fun and interactive.

Which is fine, except that it can have some unpleasant side-effects, IME. The first is, it forces you to reward players inequally, which can generate bad feelings and concerns of favoritism. This can lead to a bunch of prima donnas who dominate the game and ill feelings from other players if they feel that they're trying to role-play, but apparently the DM, as drama critic, liked Player X better than Player Y. Now the DM is placed in the position of telling player Y, "Well, sorry...yes, you did singlehandedly save the party with your clever tactics and team play, but X was played his role better, and let's face it, a human fighter is pretty dull."

As I see, Player X's role-playing is it's own reward. This may be a result of only playing with my friends, where I don't feel like beating a playstyle into them, and don't want to tell them to take a walk if our playing doesn't mesh. Although more often than not, my players migrate to my style, rather than feel pushed into it. A good DM pulls the players into the story, and can encourage role-playing through things like spot-lighting their character once in a while. Even the most die-hard roll-player I know was interested when his character's backstory became a main campaign plot.

 

[IceBear]

But, that's not 3E fault, that's the GM's.

I wouldn't say the system is encouraging rollplay. The GM is the main contributer to what "style" the campaign will take. The players can roleplay out of the wazoo, but if the GM ignores it all then they'll be discouraged from doing it. Where in the rules does it tell GMs to discourage roleplay? Where is it in the rules in ANY edition for the GM to encourage roleplay? It's more of a GMing style issue than a rules issue, in my opinion. I don't think any GM worth his salt is going to accept a simple "I bluff him" and a dice roll. We would encourage him elaborate on what exactly he says, and thereby becoming more involved in the scene and then ask for a dice roll with an apporpriate circumstance bonus.

I am 100% in agreement with WizardDru's take on the issue. I'm a long time GM too, and I see a lot of "snobbery" towards the new rules because a lot of the new GMs seem to be rollplaying instead of roleplaying. I think if we look back at when we started, it took awhile before we got out of the rollplay phase too.

I think using dice as the final decision maker allows for chance to step in (like in real life - maybe that NPC is having a REALLY bad today and while normally he might have listened to you, today isn't that day) and it allows for balance.

Let's say you have two players of equal intelligence and speaking ability. One of them wants to play a conman type character so he puts a lot of points in Bluff. Another wants to be more of a swashbuckler in combat so he puts his points in tumbling. Don't you think the conman's player will feel a little upset if the swashbuckler is bluffing just as easy as he is (as the player is just as good as he is) and yet in combat the conman is at a disadvantage because he can't tumble as well? I bet he's thinking - gee, there goes my character concept down the toliet.