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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8669394" data-attributes="member: 42582">I GM much more often than I play.But the last two times I've played, the moments where I've held my breath as dice are rolled have been social, not combat. (In my Burning Wheel play I think there might be one combat every two or three sessions.) I (as my PC) tried to persuade my brother to throw off the yoke of his "master" (an as-yet unidentified NPC) and join me in restoring our family to its rightful place and status; I rolled the Command dice; and failed. My brother turned his face away, and rode off in his cart to complete the errand his master had sent him on.For me, resolving that as a puzzle (eg what leverage can I use to turn my brother from loyalty to the master back to loyalty to family) would have been an uninspiring experience. Trying to persuade him, and then seeing the dice land as they did, was more like a slap in the face. It stung: just like in a real world interaction that goes badly, there was the sense of what might have been, but wasn't to be.This is the flipside of the slap in the face: in a different session playing a different character, I went to do a cruel and ruthless thing - murdering an innkeeper for his cashbox - and my friend who was GMing the scene at that moment called for a Steel check. I failed, and so hesitated. The hesitation allowed another character to act, and the innkeeper's life was saved.In both cases, the "script" being established in part by the dice didn't make it harder for me to inhabit my character. It helped me understand what my character was doing and feeling.Talking where I get to choose at every moment how I respond, and when I know that the person I'm talking to gets to choose how they respond, doesn't feel much like the sort of talking that for me is more characteristic of RPGing - that is, talking where the stakes and emotional investment are very high.Consider two RPGs in which magic-use is possible: classic D&D where the player has to choose a small loadout of spells, from a not-quite-as-small list; and Doctor Strange as statted in Marvel Heroic RP, where just about any magical effect you can think of is permissible as an action declaration. Would we say that, in the D&D case, there is no need for the player?Or consider D&D combat, which is resolved via dice-rolling: would we say that the player may as well not show up, because it's just dice and charts that are telling us how the combat plays out?In the Prince Valiant game, two PCs are wooing the same lady. Various actions are played out; each becomes aware that the other is a rival. They go to the tavern to discuss the situation man-to-man, over some ales. The discussion occurs, and each has stated their case and explained why Violette would be better off with him and why the other ought to stand aside; and neither budges. The question, then, is is that it? Is a player's decision that their character won't yield to another determinative? Or is it a statement of stakes, to then be resolved.We resolved it, via opposed Fellowship checks (which, as it happened, produced a tie - so the rivalry continued). How you would infer from that that the player may as well not be there is a mystery to me. Apart from anything else, who do you think is setting the stakes?</blockquote>

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