Recent content by Lanefan

And I sat through that discussion/argument between DM and player more times than I care to count. As far as I can tell, the only way to prevent this behavior is to remove the roll completely. I wasn't the DM. And the DM did his best, but it was an argument every time. (still is, from what I...

Says you. Pushing boundaries and acting in bad faith are very much not the same thing. The former is IMO expected of a good player of any type of game or sport where there's malleable boundaries to be pushed; and (I think) all RPGs qualify as such. The latter is not, and deserves to be...

Unless one sees in-character dialogue and thespianism as being the point of furthest advance, and thus sees subsequent movement as backsliding.

When done properly, this makes loads of sense. However, there's always that guy (and in 3e days, I played with a few) who just leads off with "I roll Persuasion. 16. He's letting us in!" or "Let's just skip to the roll, can we?". And the rationale behind this is crystal clear: the player...

Good summary. There's times when all four block points come into play: Intent - you want to do something but you're prevented before you start by internal (e.g. alignment, vows) or external (e.g. laws, physical restraint) considerations. Initiation - you set out to do something blatantly...

Uhhh...yes? Why else do we do this, as opposed to playing a board game or card game? "Moved past" it to what, though? Game-izing the in-character dialogue piece is in no way a forward step, so how have we moved past anything?

Your analysis falls apart a bit before it even starts, because you've put the GM in the position of having to frame scenes (a very NY approach where action is more expected to jump from one discrete scene to the next with little if any detail given to what happens between the scenes) rather than...

I agree it's not impossible. In fact, it would be pretty easy to implement; far easier than a lot of other kitbashes I've done. The more important question is whether it's desirable to add in these sort of mechanics (or expand them such that they work on PCs just like they do on NPCs). I'm...

They probably experiment by doing, not asking. Could that be because you're inserting mechanics into them on a regular basis and thus disrupting their flow? Free-form roleplay of social encounters is often* as smooth as just talking to friends in the pub, except the in-fiction topics are...

The root goal being rolled for was to catch the assassin. The roll(s) failed, and the assassin was not caught. Therefore, result and roll match. That you got a bit of his cloak is what I would call "fail with extras". You failed the root task but got something directly related as a...

Those would be the people who don't go out in the field looking to save captive princes from fire-breathing dragons or raid the trap-filled tombs of Antioch. :) The people who do do these things would, one would think, leave their precious possessions at home or in safekeeping somewhere, unless...

Tough. I'll deal with that argument as and when I have to. :)

"Cavalierly destroy"? Your precious item has the same chance of being destroyed as anything else you're carrying, mitigated by any protective measures you've taken to help ensure its safety. It happens all the time: characters lose items that are mechanically vital to their ability to do...

No. Next question? :)

TSR-era D&D is a better starting point IMO due to its discrete-subsystem design. WotC-era unified design is, by comparison, terrible for kitbashing as before long you're rebuilding the entire thing from the ground up rather than just changing/adding/eliminating a subsystem in relative...