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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 6106205" data-attributes="member: 22779">Oh look, yet another example of the players not jumping through the DM's hoops and getting shafted for it.  What a shock.  Note, not a chance that I randomly selected Sir Stephen.  I'm automatically going to select sub-optimal candidates.  But, oh, no, the DM is never out to aha-gotcha the players.  I would be far more inclined to believe that N'raac if every single example you give didn't shaft the players for not playing through your scenes.  Is it really that hard to pick up 6 1st level warriors in your game world?  Really?This gets back to a point Celebrim made way, way back about predictability.  If I simply bough a scroll of Summon Monster 4, I would get EXACTLY what I asked for without any chance of being shafted.  If I simply bought a wand of Mount, again, no chance of the DM shafting us.  Why is there no chance?  Because the Dm will play by the rules, but will use any vague rules to choose the interpretation that is the least favorable to the players. The Princess Bride was used as an example some ways back to show how Diplomacy can work.  And, totally fair.  What I worry about is when the DM makes every NPC Inigo Montoya and interprets the Diplomacy rules in such a way that failure (trying to use diplomacy to not have a fight will auto-fail in that situation) is guaranteed.  If the player tries to defuse the fight through diplomacy, rolls fantastically well, but still has to fight, why would the player try again?  Instead, the player either gives up trying because he cannot get the results that he wants, or he chooses a different method.  Now, they don't bother with diplomacy but go straight to charm spells.  Although that's still problematic, but at least somewhat more predictable than diplomacy.Is there anything wrong with that?</blockquote>

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