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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 4127401" data-attributes="member: 2067">You're slightly conflating two different things. I'm with you when you say don't use dice unless there's a question. I like how 3e supported that with Take 10 and Take 20 options.But when a system tells me to "Make Stuff Up," that's different from, say, 3e giving me solid guidelines on what someone with a Climb bonus of +5 can do when he's not in a rush. "Make Stuff Up" tells me to do 'whatever makes sense.'That level of subjectivity is obnoxious to me as a DM. In a game that relies on 5 different people all sharing a vision, what makes sense to one or two of us might not make sense to everyone, and I loose time and steam and creative juju if I have to stop and re-explain every little logical step I've taken to come at what makes sense, for me.And then if it doesn't make sense to someone else at the table, STILL, I feel like they're removed from the context of the game. They break the 4th wall too hard, and that weakens the experience for everyone.So rather than have a game experience that is subjective and open to interpretation, which allows for misunderstandings and differences of opinion on what is 'sensible,' I'd prefer a game system which tells me what it assumes, and allows me to depart from it. Controlling the mood is perhaps one of the most important metagame responsibilities of the DM, and whenever a rulebook tells me to Make Stuff Up, it's introducing something that could easily break the mood. Which means that instead of that game, I'm going to go play something else with my friends that isn't so fragile and dependant on one person's whims. Something like a videogame, where a computer rigidly enforces the rules of it's domain. Not quite as satisfying as a monumental adventure with friends, but at least if I'm playing Smash Brothers in a room full of pals, it's tougher for one person's eccentricity to ruin it for everyone.If I don't need the books to tell me how to play the game, then why am I playing D&D and not doing improv on the stage?I play D&D for a specific kind of experience, just like I do anything amusing for a specific kind of experience. If the game leaves it so broadly open that my experience is "Whatever you want!", then I will want to do something that can directly tell me what experience I will have with it, instead. Any cohort rules that I'm willing to pay for in order to add to my D&D game will actually tell me what they expect, and not just tell me to make stuff up.</blockquote>

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