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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 3032844" data-attributes="member: 7240">Whereas I consider it to be gaming.Who says they cannot request advice or assistance from someone in doing so. Isn't it up to the player and the player alone as to which tools she uses to play her character? I happen to be someone who enjoys and appreciates getting advice from others on how I can play my character more effectively. Think of the magnitude and difficulty of the task of playing a person living in another time, in another culture, in another occupation from a totally different family. People with formal dramatic training find it extremely challenging to do this even when all of their character's words and actions are spelled-out in a script. Even then, attempting to approximate another human being is extraordinarily difficult.Now throw in the D&D. Not only is this person living in another culture, in another time, in another occupation. They are also living in a universe with radically different physical laws. I don't know about you but I find such a task daunting in the extreme. Even if I'm a psychological genius at putting myself in others' shoes, I'm going to do, at best, a totally half-assed job.That's how my games sometimes go. But there is no sense in which a PC is run by the entire group -- a player can involve the rest of the group in her decision-making about her character as much as she likes. Other times, people don't feel the need for consultation. I like to give my players all the tools I can to help them role play their characters, something I consider to be pretty challenging.Even leaving aside my reasoning above, I just wouldn't do that. This sort of thing kills a friendly table talk dynamic in my experience.That's no different in my campaign. Of course the person playing the character makes all final decisions about what the character does. All I do is enable them, by producing background material, answering questions and allowing them to bounce ideas off other players is give them the opportunity to make as informed a decision as they wish to.This is exactly the kind of situation I am trying to address. While the players spend 4 hours a week playing their characters, the characters spend 168 hours a week being themselves. The actual characters would be far less likely to forget absolutely crucial life and death information than their players are. If all a character can remember about her life is all her player can recall, unaided, you're not simulating a bunch of fantasy heroes; you're simulating a group of fantasy Alzheimer patients.It depends. If it is something that would be covered by a combat telepathy spell in the PHB, then no -- clearly that kind of communication you have to pay for with such a spell; I take a dim view to people coordinating flanking straegies and the like. On the other hand, if players are simply reminding eachother of the rules or giving advice on how a fellow player's character could make the best possible use of his abilities, I have zero problem. After all, the characters know way way more about fighting than all the players put together.</blockquote>

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