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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ExploderWizard" data-source="post: 6852737" data-attributes="member: 66434">Better at what exactly? There are so many different play styles and variations within those styles that skill in one may not transfer to the other. I am a decent player and DM, having over 35 years of experience but if I were to play in 3.5 game including tons of splat material then I would ask for help from someone who was a master of all that material to assist in character creation. There are a great many different sorts of gaming skills and everyone, regardless of how long they have been playing, has aspects that they favor and are thus more skilled in them. Personally, I have seen more clashes of expectations based on play style than age. It is all a matter of taste. There are those my age and older who prefer a newer approach to playing and there are young players who love OSR games. It is true that you can find out more about someone in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. Young or old, how do they approach, and what do they expect out of the game? These questions are more important IMHO than physical age. Why do you think 5E doesn't have a strong connection to the scenario that the DM has prepared prior to play? I prepare my 5E scenarios and notes much the same as I have since B/X was released. There are system based differences of course but the principle is the same. The 5E background system is wonderful for aiding in the decisions about what a character might know. If a character has chosen background: sailor, and asks if he/she might know anything about favorite ports of call for pirates along the Wild Coast then I would likely be inclined to impart the information without a roll. A character with the criminal background may know as well. A noble or a knight might not have any idea.Often times, when character attributes have no bearing on the situation I decide what bucket the information belongs in. Is the information being sought very basic and vital? This is the kind of information that was commonly read to players in the introduction  of classic adventure modules. If this is the case, then just get them the information. It is the type of info the party needs to engage with or even become aware of, a given scenario. Then there is the very useful but not vital bucket. Information that could save the PCs time, resources, make their lives easier, or provide a bit of extra reward goes here. This type of information can be obtained often by simply being interested enough to look for it. For example the PCs have all the vital information that they need to explore a particular adventure site. The magic user decides to spend some time in the library looking up any historical data about the site as well as any pertinent rumors or legends. Doing this research earns the information being sought generally without a die roll. Another character may be trained in history and wants to see if he can remember anything offhand. For this I will generally have rough estimates worked out about how much information can be recalled depending on the roll.In many cases a roll is a quick and dirty way to get some information when time or disinterest prevents taking steps to get a clearer picture. A richer game world? Impossible to determine by system used or what published material is being used. A good DM can make a sketchy barely defined game world come alive and a poor one can make the Realms as dull and mushy as cold porridge. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /><img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /><img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" />  No better cure for premature polyhedral rollers than this. Thats classic OD&D training in action!  At first, you know how fragile life is so you don't get too attached. Then after getting a level or two under your belt, you start to cheer for the character and really get invested. At that point randomness is your biggest enemy. Anything you can do to just play without invoking the fickle finger of the dice is worth doing. When the whole group is doing it together its an awful lot of fun. It would seem rather strange to be the only one playing like that in the group though. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />The binary phenomenon comes from learning to play in certain gaming culture. When D&D was first released it came with only a few hard and fast rules. Everything else, like most war games played with a referee at the time, fell under the principle of: everything not forbidden is possible. So if there wasn't a rule explicitly stating that doing X was not permitted, you could attempt it and the referee would adjudicate. As more rules were added to the game and the mechanics became more complex the governing philosophy reversed gears. The exact point at which this viewpoint starting dominating the majority of play is debatable but the commonly accepted principle became: everything which is not expressly permitted is impossible. The binary switch was thrown. At this point, somehow the character sheet became the beginning, middle, and end of all possibilities for your character. Things that most active adventuring human beings can do at least in a somewhat passable manner suddenly became impossible without a skill, talent, feat or whatever. It was when this principle took over that how things are accomplished mechanically began to assert dominance over what characters were actually doing in the game world. Having a +X in a skill was far more important than what you chose to do in a given situation when ALL situations ended with a DC Y die roll. A player learning to play in such a culture would indeed be lost without enough tangible widgets to assemble. In their mind they have nothing with which to aid them in the inevitable slew of difficult DC die rolls that they will required to make to be able to even pick their nose. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /> How true!</blockquote>

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