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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9609604" data-attributes="member: 4937">I interpret Gobhag as saying that a player who isn't skilled at intrigue and social deduction or manipulation needs rules to support their character being skilled at such things because otherwise the player is denied the ability to play a character who has skills and talents they don't have.  In other words, this hypothetical unskilled player would have more fun with a metagame of dice rolling and social combat mechanics than they would acting out in a thespian manner "courtly intrigue" since they'd fail at it and only be frustrated.  We can imagine a player who is shy, stutters, is socially awkward, or whatever and as such who doesn't want to role-play by acting and who would rather role-play through some non-social interaction.And, I agree to some extent with Gobhag's claim that it may well be the case that a hypothetical unskilled player would enjoy more a metagame of dice rolling than they would acting out "courtly intrigue".   However, I would protest that:a) The resulting game would not be a role-playing game of "courtly intrigue" because it would not produce a concrete transcript of play.  The dice couldn't in fact create what words were said or precisely what plots were engaged in or allow us to understand why someone rose or loss in popularity and reputation at the court beyond that the dice dictated that they did.  b) To the extent that the metagame of courtly intrigue had very close approximation of real-life courtly intrigue, the hypothetical inept player would also be inept at the metagame because they would just as poorly understand the nuances and strategies of the metagame as they would actually courtly intrigue.  In the same fashion that we could provide the player with a skilled warrior, but if he didn't understand concentration of force, use of terrain, economy of force, and so forth that are necessary to succeed on the battlefield, we could provide the player with a charismatic discerning character but if he made uncharismatic and undiscerning choices, chose weak allies who we doomed to sink just because he liked them, took rash actions that offended key persons, and so forth eventually he'd place himself in difficulties his charisma bonuses couldn't compensate for.  Indeed, his charisma might realistically make him a target that would line up enemies and alliances against him in ways the player couldn't foresee.  The more realistic the metagame, the worse the player would perform in it regardless of the character sheet.c) To the extent that we could pad the player against his choices so that his character performs well regardless of the situation, we could only do this by taking away the player's agency in subtle ways.  Usually this is done by having the GM say in some fashion, "You don't want to do that." or "This is what your character understands." or having the GM actually be the one that creates that character's transcript by putting suitable words in the characters mouth (effectively turning the PC into an NPC).  But this doesn't really solve the problem, in as much as we still don't have the player playing a character he's unable to play, we just foist that responsibility off on the GM.Fundamentally, it's not possible to both have an RPG and have a situation where a player can successfully be anything he wants.  There are just somethings you can't put in by mechanics, which is generally not something which players with the aesthetic of Fantasy want to hear, but it's true anyway.  The player's mind always exists in the game universe to some extent, and we can't take it out.  And that the player's mind is actually the character's mind means that if it is a game then it is also an imperfect simulation.  And if it is a perfect simulation, then it isn't a game, since the player would then only be observing rather than participating.</blockquote>

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