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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 8668885" data-attributes="member: 6785785">No one has said that it should be skipped. A dice roll being used to resolve the matter, or to inform the situation in a meaningful way. It’s meant as a randomizing element so that there’s something going on besides “GM says”. So if you’re trying to convince someone to help you, you’d still portray that in some way…state your case, bring up whatever points you think are relevant…and the GM would portray the NPC. But once the situation is clear… you want X and have mentioned Y and Z as your supporting argument…then we roll to see how it turns out.No one is saying to just skip any/all character portrayal. As you say, RPGs are their own thing. I can’t play Sherlock Holmes as brilliantly as Doyle can because I don't benefit from also being the author of the story. Doyle is authoring both the character and the mystery with which the character’s engaged. So it’s very easy for him to portray intuitive leaps by Holmes. He also benefits from being able to edit and redraft his work until it suits. Not so with an RPG player. If I’m playing a brilliant character of the Holmes variety, I don’t have such benefits. What I may have in place are game mechanics that help me portray such a character, either in the form of character/class abilities and the like, or perhaps simply in how the game plays. Could I fake an English accent and ramp up my vocabulary a bit, and use some catch phrases like “Elementary!” or “The game is afoot!”? Sure. I can portray Holmes at the surface level. But that doesn’t make me a brilliant detective. It doesn’t impart on me what it would feel like to be capable of such brilliant insights any more than swinging a foam sword makes me know what it’s like to be a warrior. Right. But who decides that the NPC absolutely won’t give in? In a more traditional game, this is likely something that the GM has decided beforehand, or (in my experience) at the moment it becomes relevant to play. This is the GM determining how the situation will go. A more narrative game would say to let the roll determine the outcome. So if the player rolls poorly and the guard is unconvinced to assist, then the GM would say something like “You can see a zealous light in his eyes as he curls his lip at your offer of a bribe” or what have you. The second removes some of the GM authority and replaces it with input from the system. This is a great example. But how is it played out? No rolls at all? The PCs don’t make a roll to learn the guard has a vice they can exploit?If all of this is simply determined ahead of time, and the PCs just assemble the info in the proper way then I don’t see how this isn’t a case of the GM authoring the problem, the solution, and the outcome, with the players merely working to discover the GM’s story.</blockquote>

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