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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6862380" data-attributes="member: 996">Nothing actually happened, because it's all make-believe.  The decisions was made for the character, by the player.  In 5e, particularly, the difference between using one slot and another could be invisible or merely qualitative to the imagined character casting the spell.  So a cleric might notice that healing a scratch for Otis the Miller doesn't take much effort, but healing an identical-seeming scratch for Count Brass tests the limits of his power.  Or he might just pray, and sometimes some people get healed fully and others don't (the gods - the game designers DM and players who imagine him and his world - work in mysterious ways).There's no 'just' about it.  And, yes, role-playing in 'director stance,' is still roleplaying, nor does RPing in 'actor stance,' absolutely require the kind of ego-submersive method acting, that you imply.  There is no character, it's imaginary, there is not 'for the same reasons' because only the player has reasons (or reason, or that matter).  The player, no matter how talented and devoted a method actor, is going to have his own reasons for every decision that won't be the reasons he imagines for his character.  That's inevitable."Games of the Imagination," yes.  That's the whole point.On the contrary.  A character in a story is a role.  Pieces on a board are part of a game.  That's what a Role Playing Game is.  That's the thing about fictional characters, they 'do' what's most dramatic or interesting or advances the plot or whatever.  They don't actually do anything.  Because.  Imaginary.They do.  But not usually by the experience of killing things.  I mean, you might get good at it, but if you're not a sociopath, there'll be other effects, as well.  And, human learning isn't a one-way accumulation of experience, either.  If you acquire a skill, you need to maintain it.  Class/level is wildly unrealistic that way.  It does protagonists in a story a little better, since they often face escalating challenges and are based on two-dimensional archetypes - but not a whole  lot better, really.If you're using 5e's ability check system, though, you'll have to adjust the DC pretty dramatically to get anything like the same results, because needing to make two rolls instead of one to succeed is the equivalent of Disadvantage...Problem is they also create incompetence.  If the game has Diplomacy, you can invest in one skill and be a good diplomat.  If has Diplomacy, Politics, Insight, Deception, Intimidate, Resistance, Conversation, Oratory, and Negotiation, and doesn't give you ten times as many skill ranks to spread around, it's going to be a lot harder to be a good diplomat.  Worse, if the list is open ended, you can build your character to be an great diplomat, but then when the DM adds Protocol and History skills on the fly, you're suddenly making rookie mistakes again.NWPs might've been in the Survival Guides - or expanded by them.  Also, presumably kept the Thief 'special' abilities not just for backwards compatibility but because NWPs were optional, and the Thief needed to be able to do Theifly stuff when the DM opted out.</blockquote>

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