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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 8378477" data-attributes="member: 22779">To be honest, I think there are two issues.  1.  The skill/power system in D&D is very binary.  You either succeed or you don't.  And, if you can present a plausible idea to your DM, you just succeed.  Social interaction generally isn't like this because there's usually a lot of back and forth.  You talk to the NPC, the NPC talks back, you reply, so on and so forth and the dice and mechanics don't really determine your final success.  I can use Persuasion to make the NPC be more open to talking to me, but, a successful Persuasion check doesn't really mean that the NPC will do what I want.  And, nor does a failed check mean that I automatically get refused either.  Combat certainly isn't like this at all.  Combat is almost 100% governed by the mechanics.But Exploration tends to be very binary.  Either I found the secret door/trap/whatever or I didn't.  And, 5e takes it even further by telling the DM to simply allow success or force failure without relying on the dice.  Did I open that lock?  Well, if I don't have a time pressure, then, yup, I open it.  Every time.  There's no check needed.  Rogue Player just says, I unlock the door, and, unless there is some reason that you have to hurry up, you don't even roll.  The rogue just unlocks the door.  It's the ultimate extension of the Take 20 rule from 3e.2.  The second issue is that there is so little guidance in the DMG or in gaming advice on how to handle the capabilities of the PC's.  We've seen it in this thread.  Many of the posters here have basically gone the route of throwing up endless road blocks in the way of the players until the players fall in line.  Heck, some even claim that using basic character abilities (and, yes, I count 1st level rituals and cantrips to be basic character abilities) is not in line with the table social contract.  <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/paranoid.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":uhoh:" title="Paranoid    :uhoh:" data-shortname=":uhoh:" />  To me, that's just bonkers.  And, then you've got the endless "Well, this won't work because (insert interpretation that isn't really in line with the whole "reasonable observer" standard)."  You want to use an unseen servant?  Ok, we'll make you touch every single flagstone as a separate object, and monkey's paw everything you say.  It's extremely heavy handed and frankly, a very poor example of how the game should be run.</blockquote>

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