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<blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6243132" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Yup.&nbsp; I (of course) agree.&nbsp; I was intimating what LostSoul states here:I see people regularly dismiss 4e's analogue (the Skill Challenge) to other systems' noncombat conflict resolution framework, call it gamist, or &quot;a gratuitous exercise in dice rolling.&quot;&nbsp; Unsurprisingly, they are performing the following tautology:&nbsp; &quot;Because my group ignores fictional positioning when resolving Skill Challenges that means that fictional positioning is irrelevant to the resolution of Skill Challenges.&quot;&nbsp; Its a weird &quot;blaming the victim&quot; paradigm that should be self-evident.If you have to convince the chamberlain to let you see the king and the chamberlain then challenges you to legitimize your authority to even request audience with the king (let alone have the audience granted), its only sensical for your approach to be constrained by the fictional positioning.&nbsp; Therefore, unless some contextual element of the fictional positioning is in play to warrant &quot;using an Athletics check to exemplify your legitimacy by way of your might&quot; (eg its a warrior culture, or the chamberlain sets you specifically against a champion, or he asks you to pull the sword from the stone, et al), it stands to reason that an Athletics check nets no forward movement (read: success) in your effort to achieve your sought ends (attaining audience with the king) and only serves to make the evolved fictional positioning absurd (or embarrassing to your character).&nbsp; For example:Another issue people seem to routinely blame the Skill Challenge framework for is the &quot;failed check resulting in no reframe of the situation and no evolution of the fictional positioning.&quot;&nbsp; The old example:Both of these examples of groups ignoring fictional positioning are routinely used to proclaim Skill Challenges as gamist or &quot;gratuitous exercises in dice rolling.&quot;&nbsp; My answer to that is &quot;well...yeah...if you outright ignore fictional positioning, make a mockery of it, or don't even attempt to reference it and evolve it...then yeah, I suppose the resultant gameplay would produce your anecdotal experience.&nbsp; How that is supposed to convince me about some inherent flaw in the construct itself, I don't know.&quot;Lastly, there is the supposition that mechanical resolution of nonviolent conflicts are &quot;rollplaying not roleplaying&quot;, espousing that noncombat conflict resolution is only legitimate and &quot;organic&quot; if players reference the fictional positioning (imagine that...) and work to strategically position themselves to convince the GM to rule favorably on behalf of their plan/plea/power-play.&nbsp; This last is a perfectly legitimate way to play and the aesthetic can be quite pleasing...but it is not the only way to play.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Manbearcat, post: 6243132, member: 6696971"] Yup. I (of course) agree. I was intimating what LostSoul states here: I see people regularly dismiss 4e's analogue (the Skill Challenge) to other systems' noncombat conflict resolution framework, call it [I]gamist[/I], or "a gratuitous exercise in dice rolling." Unsurprisingly, they are performing the following tautology: "Because my group ignores fictional positioning when resolving Skill Challenges that means that fictional positioning is irrelevant to the resolution of Skill Challenges." Its a weird "blaming the victim" paradigm that should be self-evident. If you have to convince the chamberlain to let you see the king and the chamberlain then challenges you to legitimize your authority to even request audience with the king (let alone have the audience granted), its only sensical for your approach to be constrained by the fictional positioning. Therefore, unless some contextual element of the fictional positioning is in play to warrant "using an Athletics check to exemplify your legitimacy by way of your might" (eg its a warrior culture, or the chamberlain sets you specifically against a champion, or he asks you to pull the sword from the stone, et al), it stands to reason that an Athletics check nets no forward movement (read: success) in your effort to achieve your sought ends (attaining audience with the king) and only serves to make the evolved fictional positioning absurd (or embarrassing to your character). For example: Another issue people seem to routinely blame the Skill Challenge framework for is the "failed check resulting in no reframe of the situation and no evolution of the fictional positioning." The old example: Both of these examples of groups ignoring fictional positioning are routinely used to proclaim Skill Challenges as [I]gamist [/I]or "gratuitous exercises in dice rolling." My answer to that is "well...yeah...if you outright ignore fictional positioning, make a mockery of it, or don't even attempt to reference it and evolve it...then yeah, I suppose the resultant gameplay would produce your anecdotal experience. How that is supposed to convince me about some inherent flaw in the construct itself, I don't know." Lastly, there is the supposition that mechanical resolution of nonviolent conflicts are "rollplaying not roleplaying", espousing that noncombat conflict resolution is only legitimate and "organic" if players reference the fictional positioning (imagine that...) and work to strategically position themselves to convince the GM to rule favorably on behalf of their plan/plea/power-play. This last is a perfectly legitimate way to play and the aesthetic can be quite pleasing...but it is not the only way to play. [/QUOTE]

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