Roll-play vs Role-play, as well as your take on alignments

First Topic: In your games which do you prefer Roll-playing (do everything according to how your stats and resolve encounters mostly with checks) or Role-playing (do everything based on who your character is and resolve encounters mostly with RP)? Personally I prefer role-playing because for D&D specifically at the end of the day it's a combat simulator and sacrificing points into charisma with a wizard just because I wanna play a smooth and charming Mage instead of a dex or int boost reduces my effectiveness in combat making the game harder for everyone and making it less enjoyable for me personally. Second topic: In games that have alignments how do you handle character acting in alignment or shifting alignment? In D&D and pathfinder it is almost impossible to nail down what is good and evil, law and chaos are fairly simple for the most part but good and evil will forever be a great debate. I once tried using a chart on a scale of -10 to 10 for good and evil and -10 to 10 for chaos and law. My characters would start out wherever they wanted and if they had no preference they would be placed at 0,0 for True Neutral. This ended up with a lot of bookkeeping and arguing.  Then I changed the alignments, I no longer had good and evil but selfless and selfish, with this simple word change it became much easier to determine what the characters alignment was since a selfish action and selfish action could be judged purely on motivation as oppose to morals.  But what do you people prefer/do?

I'll start with the Second Topic. I am a DM. this is my primary function in most roleplaying games I am in. The first time I ever sat down with someone and played, It was as a DM. I did not play as a player for the next 2 years. This has probably colored my view of alignment somewhat, as I first considered it from the DM's point of view. that said, I have learned over the years (and I started DMing in 2000, when I was 20 years old, after years of fascination with the subject) that the only time alignment comes into play is when you want it to. Obvious? of course! But think about this; A character in your game is just that - In YOUR game. do as you will. In fact, you're the only one who actually needs to know what alignment any one character is anyway. Players always THINK they know what their characters are, but they are rarely right. Every character in your game should think they are on the right side, fighting the good fight. even the bad ones. Easiest way to simulate real life in respect to alignment is to simply not tell anyone what alignment their character is. assign it randomly if you want to, or keep track of every action. up to you. Just don't tell THEM what you're doing. A character who believes he is good but is never quite sure is far easier to manage than one who KNOWS he is good and pushes the boundries of what is good because he knows the DM will warn him hes going to far... What it comes down to is that Alignment really IS a straightjacket for a player. even subconsciously, a player will think about their actions in terms of their alignment. this is what leads to (L)AWFUL STUPID - if taken too far. But what about character classes based on alignment you ask? well, I say, what about them? A character that is forced to be lawful good, or neutral, or any variation of alignment isnt any different from any other character out there. cept they can do some pretty cool stuff. besides the point though. They still have to live with themselves. take, for example, the Paladin. I know what you're thinking. Ugh, right? well, I use it because as an example, its tried and true. Everyone has an opinion about the paladin and his alignment. (and If you don't, and you're still reading this... let me know why, because really? how can you not?) The Paladin is by its very nature, a Lawful Good character. strip that paladin of an alignment on his sheet though, and you get a PLAYER who has to think of every action in terms of his or her beliefs. because really, thats what it comes down to. A paladin believes themselves to be righteous and holy. I mean, If they weren't, they wouldn't be paragons of their faith, now would they? so, instead of a Paladin who thinks i have to be lawful and good, and tries to fit what they do into that alignment, you have a character that thinks in terms of their religion, of what is right to do, and what is just. Sometimes this leads to things that are so far out of lawful in the traditional sense that by rights they should fall from grace right then and there. But, somehow, it all makes sense.... My favorite paladin to play was a fellow who began his career as a street pickpocket, and a damned good one too. A lip on him like nothing you've ever seen, cheeky, disrespectful and utterly charming when he wanted something out of you. Now, he lived on the streets for a long time. Pulled himself out of the gutters and into the homes of the wealthy and influential (though never by invitation - and he never stayed long). Not exactly what you would call paladin material right? well, he wouldn't have said so either. but someone started killing off the beggars and streetworkers of his city. quite through chance he saw a pattern forming, and it lead to his finding out about a society of the younger nobles of the city who took to donning outfits to hide their status and using their anonymity to hunt down and kill for sport the homeless and unwanted. Needless to say, this bothered him to no end, and he kept picking at the knowledge, looking for more information about these hooded vigilantes, and because he was hushed by those around him for his discoveries, he kept it to himself. One day he came across three of these hooded men laughing and taking bets on how many kicks a begger could take before he died while taking turns trying to kick one to death in an alley, and, before he really stopped to think about it, he stabbed his dirk into the kidney of one of them before his presence was even known. The two remaining men turned to him in shock and surprise, before pulling swords from beneath their cloaks and trying to pen him in while skewering him with their blades. Fighting his way free, cursing his own stupidity at attacking a group of men who obviously had no problem killing a man, even one as pathetic as a beggar, he managed to score a telling blow against one of the men, and ran, blood dripping from his both own wounds and his dirk. Once he disappeared into the night, leaving the wounded bravo and his companion behind him, he told himself that he would forget about the incident and forget that he ever knifed a man in the back. In the morning, nursing a hangover, he found out that one of his friends had been found dead in an alley, his throat cut, and him dressed in rags like a beggar. in denial, he asked everyone he could about anything to do with his friends death, and everything lead to the conclusion that his friend died in the same alley that he had knifed a man, though no other corpses were found at the same time. Reality crashed in on him, as he realized that he had been there when his friend was being beaten to death and he had run to save his own hide instead of trying to help him against his attackers. Horrified at what he realized, he fell into a viscous trap of self doubt and loathing, lashing out at anyone who tried to help him, until eventually they left him alone.  Numb on the outside and hurting on the inside, he operated on autopilot for a while, until a former friend took offense at something he said and called him on it. Left with no choice but to deal with the situation, he let his former friend beat him senseless, hardly caring if he lived or died; and while he lay there, wondering idly why things had gotten so bad, the shell of his denial cracked and left him with no excuses. It was all his fault - He was responsible for his own condition, not anyone else. Dragging himself to his feet, he forced one step in front of another, over and over again until he had reached the spot where he had left his friend to die. Kneeling down in the mud of the alley, he stayed there for hours, trying to get any kind of feeling from his friends spirit that it understood he was sorry, that it was his fault. He had seen the evil in the glares of the men who killed him; heard it in their voices as they laughed at what they were doing.  Still he had ran, thinking only of his own safety, and forgetting even that the beggar had been there at all, remembering only the slippery feeling of dread as he thought about what he himself had done. He came to the realization that day that he could no longer live as he had been doing, live as selfishly as he had been doing, without regard to the effects his actions had on those around him. He needed to find out more about the people who did this act, try and find them, and stop them from doing it any more. That was the last day that he ever thought seriously about stealing something for his own satisfaction, and the last day he picked someones pocket for profit.   He spent a year searching for survivors of the societies atrocities, helping them get back on there feet, organizing the homeless and poor and learning more about them every time he stepped into the darkness of the alleys, not judging them for what they did, or what they were, but who they were. He lived with them, helping to feed them and bring them security, but every few weeks, more dead bodies would be found, or more homeless would turn up dead. to this day, he is living in the squallor of that city, but now he fights to protect the helpless who have noone else to fight for them. he doesn't even remember when it happened, but he never got sick, and, if one of his homeless were hurt, he could summon power from within and use it to heal those who he protected. He still hides in the shadows of the city, but now he watches, looking for anyone who feels of the same evil that he saw in the eyes of those killers who started it all... (by the way, I'm kinda getting into the first question a little here too, but actually still focused on the alignment side of things for now ) in game terms, he is a character created in 2nd edition adnd. those that know the system can well imagine the difficulty in first meeting the criteria for such a dual class character (level 5 rogue to level 8 paladin, if you're curious) and second, and more importantly to my point, the challenges in presenting this as a viable choice of action AT ALL based on the straightjacket of alignment. my character was undoubtedly a very successful and very unlawful thief. with a decidedly neutral outlook on the whole good vs evil schtick... but his entire catalyst and change was totally plausible (if contrived and vaguely similar to a certain dark avenger of the night - not intentional at the time at all), even though individually the elements of my actions were neither lawful, or good, they led to that. I basically had to roleplay my way though this characters change of heart and calling, justify it in terms of the story (as I did, above), and then prove that my character was indeed worthy of the alignment in question while still keeping true to my characters self. ( have to say, it was a LOT of fun, but challenging as all hells). this is where I should note that during the entire game the alignment of my sheet read "           ".  I never put anything in there, and I never have on any character sheet I have filled in as a player. The DM kept asking what my alignment was, and I kept telling him that it was his call. I made some really murky decisions over the course of that game, and the DM kept all the results of those decisions in his mind, but it worked. brilliantly. although every now and again the DM would stop and stare at me when I presented my course of action. can't say I blame him. I WAS still a rogue after all. I simply used my skills to further the cause I was fighting for. in fact, I managed to convince my DM that I would be in breach of doing all that I could to right wrongs if I did NOT use them when I knew I had these skills available to me, especially when sometimes it would save shedding the blood of people that were innocent of anything I knew about. like I said, it got REALLY murky for a while. (backstab was the best one - if someone is in the act of something evil and unjust, and you know or believe that they are unrepentant, why WOULDNT you cut them down in the act of their evil, regardless of the honor of the situation (again, was a Paladin, not a cavalier, honor wasn't a part of it - it was about saving innocents and stopping evil). This whole story is basically an example of what I am talking about. a character that labeled themselves as lawful good and tried to follow that alignment to the letter of what the PHB suggests would never have been able to play that character. Instead, by not having an alignment at all, or rather, leaving it up to the DM to adjucate my alignment (as is his job - I certainly see it as mine when I DM) I played an awesome, long, challenging, epic campaign (solo, for most of it, though occasionally I'd get friends to bring in characters for oneshots on their part) without once knowing what my official alignment was. obviously, I had one. and the DM decided that it most closely resempled lawful good, or I would not have stayed a Paladin for so long. which also brings me to the second part of the posts question. which I have forgotten. hold on while I scroll up.... Oh dogs, That was a lot of scrolling up.  at least now I remember the question. anyway, the first point: I do both. equally. you can't role play something that isn't on your sheet. if you have built a naive wizard who excels at problem solving and pulling random bits of information out of his... hat... at just the right time, then build him that way. if you didn't build him that way, then you can't justify him being like that. you can't just do something that you want to fit your character just because you want to. it has to be built in.  I'm going to use gather information (dnd 3.5) as my example. you have a guy who likes to role play. this is fine - its what the game is about. But he wants to know the safest way to the next town. well, he approaches the innkeeper, strikes up a conversation about caravans, and starts questioning him about routes to take and dangers on the roads. You, the DM, make a gather information check - the player is still talking, still asking his questions, still role playing, and you're checking his success against the roll you just made - modified by his character sheets modifiers, of course. lets say he rolls a 2. well, this is bad. but hes still role playing it out. no need to ruin his fun, right? lets say the innkeep get suspicious - why is a guy like this trying to pump him for information? he might think hes a bandit looking for the next caravan to raid, or maybe he just decided to clam up - this is roll playing it through a role playing perspective. the player might even get the information he was looking for, just not for free. or he might be reported to the guards. up to you. you're the DM. Just remember to have fun with whatever happens. always try and think WHY something is going bad - its not all about just the numbers, but don't ignore them - use them for inspiration! this allows for great roleplaying moments in your players memories. trust me, I've been there. anyone else ever stormed a castlewall covered in orcish archers and successfully fought their way to the gateroom to release the drawbridge so the kings guards could retake the palace - whats that? of course? well, were you a fifth level wizard with no weapons and only a few spells running ahead of the party (expeditious retreat) and going at it alone? I was. and I survived too. no damage. booyah. the minotaur was a little tricky though - thank the dogs I had unseen servant to pull the release lever and open the drawbridge back up while staying out of range of that reach.

"Roleplay vs. roll-play" is a canard, based entirely on a faulty premise and false dichotomy. It's divisive to the hobby and needs to be retired. Roleplaying is making a decision that your character would also make, given the context of the scene in-game. That's it. That's all it is. Just that one little thing right there.   It is nothing else other than that.  So if you're swinging your sword at an orc or wooing the princess fair, if that's something your character would likely do given context, you're roleplaying . Accents, monologue, dialogue, mannerisms, quirks, traits, narrative flourish, etc... all of those are just ways to communicate the act of your character making decisions. They are not roleplaying in and of themselves. So you know that kid who barely speaks except when his turn is up in combat? If he's doing what his character would do in that scene (using Twin Strike on the gnoll, etc.), guess what? He's roleplaying ! To suggest otherwise means you don't know what roleplaying actually is and borders on elitist behavior. If you're playing the game by the rules, you will make decisions based on context and roll when the rules tell you to , not when the GM feels like it. Any given game will tell you when you need to roll for something. If the GM is waiving those rules because he likes your characterization, then the GM is making a big mistake: He is forcing you to game the GM instead of play the game. GM FAIL. In D&D 4e, for example, you roll in non-mundane, dramatic situations (PHB pg. 178) when the outcome is unknown and when success and failure can both be interesting. If your action meets those criteria, there's a roll. The DM doesn't get to handwave that because he likes your narrative flourish or Scottish brogue or whatever. If he does, you're no longer playing D&D at that point... you're playing the DM. (And this is VERY common in games I see around here. I can always win at that game. It's not even a challenge to me whereas actually playing D&D is .) As far as handling a shifting alignment, it must be done by the agreement of the DM and the player in question. If both do not agree, then the alignment does not change. It's just that simple. Anything done unilaterally in this regard is apt to create conflict that, believe me, you don't want. If the DM or players feel that said player is not acting in good faith or in agreement with the rules of the game he chose to play, then this is deserving of an out-of-game conversation to resolve what is an out-of-game problem with the player, not an in-game problem with the character.

Iserith said: The DM doesn't get to handwave that because he likes your narrative flourish or Scottish brogue or whatever. If he does, you're no longer playing D&D at that point... you're playing the DM. (And this is VERY common in games I see around here. I can always win at that game. It's not even a challenge to me whereas actually playing D&D is .) When I'm running a game, I never assign automatic success or failure based upon roleplay, but, if the player does an exceptionally good job at roleplaying something to solve a problem or interact with an NPC as part of a social encounter *while making sure that roleplay fits the character and situation*, I'll provide a bonus (generally +2, sometimes a reroll). If the party is trying to find materials to cobble together into a raft on a deserted island, if the character starts describing how he's searching around and referencing a point in his backstory where he worked as a sailor/shipwright/survivalist in a similar situation, I'll give them a bit of a bonus for going above and beyond what's required (i.e. "I wanna find some wood to make a raft"). If the party is trying to scare a kobold into telling them where the traps are in its warren, if the player starts actually interacting actively with the kobold and specifically describing the malevolent behaviors he's taking to scare the kobold, I'll give a similar bonus since they're going above and beyond since all they *have* to say is "I want to scare the kobold into telling me what I want to know". Just because the rules assign specific values doesn't mean that someone who puts in more effort into roleplaying shouldn't get similar benefits as someone who puts more effort into character optimization (i.e. more effective in given situations). I wouldn't push it to any major *consistent* (i.e always getting a +2 for social skills) or combat based advantages (no bonuses to attack rolls or damage rolls for describing how the player is attacking), but I think it's wrong to describe the behavior as gaming the GM rather than the system. Someone that spends 12 hours building the best knight imaginable based on the rules and someone that puts forth a lot of effort into *playing* said knight as actively as possible are both expending similar amounts of effort, only in different ways. Both efforts should be rewarded. Some players are *crazy* focused on gaming the system through character optimization. Why should *their* focus on looking at rules minutiae to eke out every little advantage even if it makes next to no sense for an actual person to be *anything* like that be valued more than the focus of someone that puts their focus into actually getting into the game. I've met all kinds of powergamers whose in character behaviors made next to no sense: high charisma characters that behave as unlikeable, uncouth wallflowers (and yet have intimidate, diplomacy, *and* bluff trained so they're highly experienced with dealing with people) and low charisma characters that force themselves into being the party face. In *any* social system, there will be an aspect of gaming the arbiter of the system. That's just human psychology; we're not computers or purely logical creatures. Trying to stamp it out just because some people abuse it isn't good for the game any more than trying to completely stamp out character optimization because some people will look for *every* loophole and advantage they can by digging through 30 different books. The only time it's a problem is when the GM is incapable of *limiting* the impact of it to an acceptable level: the GM should feel free to curb overpowered combos using house errata and feel free to provide benefits to encourage people to actively engage the game. Personally, in addition to providing condition bonuses based upon role played interactions in skill checks, I also keep a reserve of 10% of each night's/fight's experience to divy out to players in attendance and a further 10% (or more) to provide to players that impress me through heroic action or roleplay (all characters get 80% even if they don't show up ensure that no on gets completely left behind because they couldn't make a couple games). *Everyone* should be encouraged to roleplay. Not doing anything to actually encourage it in game just means that the only thing you're actually *encouraging* is character optimization as if it were the only thing that mattered.

Giving bonuses for player actions  you think are good is biased and goes against the role of being a fair arbiter of the rules of the game as applied to the scene. I think most people would agree that is the role of the GM in most games (and certainly that's the case in D&D). You are effectively turning it away from a game of D&D which has set mechanics to a game of "Please the DM" or "DM May I?" even if you have the best of intentions. Good ideas are their own reward because they're fun and entertaining. But as in life an art, sometimes good ideas just don't work and sometimes stupid ones do. That's for the dice to decide, not the DM, and the DM shouldn't weight the dice to favor such things. You adjudicate the mechanics according to the way the system prescribes or you risk the game taking a backseat to pleasing the DM. If you want to encourage players to establish elements of the scene or to come up with fun ideas, you can do this is in an unbiased way. Simply allow the players to establish an "asset" for a +2 bonus (or whatever is appropriate) which is anything they can think of that makes sense in the context of the scene. It can be concrete like "I use the buoyant wood of these balsa wood trees I found" or abstract like "the fact that my plan takes drow racial enmity into account." The DM is not involved in this transaction and whatever the player says is true and valid as long as it does not contradict existing fiction. The player declares and claims his bonus and thus the DM cannot be biasing the mechanics on his own. Naturally, if your players are okay with your approach and have given you their buy-in, then you can keep doing what you're doing. I'm simply presenting the view of someone who prefers to remain as unbiased as possible while still achieving the goal of encouraging player agency and creativity in the context of the game.

I play all of those kinds of systems, too, and was careful to make a great deal of my language broad except when specifically referring to D&D. I would add that even in the games you're referencing (FATE, Spirit of the Century, Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, Marvel Heroic RPG, etc.), there are specific rules to follow for adjudication of action and conflict resolution. I dare say none of those games rely upon the GM to be "magnanimously" granting bonuses based on his or her own bias. These are things people add to the games themselves and aren't part of how the game is supposed to be played. It's like if I flirted with the banker and got some extra cash on the side when playing Monopoly. (Of course, it should be noted that if that bias is okay with you and your group, then keep on keeping on.)

I don't feel like writing a wall of text, so I won't. Besides, there's enough arguments with good points that I have read. Both are important. Narrative and rolling. Neither one is better than the other, and is simply another way of approaching role-play. Sometimes actions don't require rolls and some do, it just depends on the situation really for me.

Just me again - and might I saw wow, most posts I've seen in one overnight sleep to ANY post i've followed. I agree in point with almost everything in the  comments above. I do NOT throw the rules out the window at all.  in regards to Giving bonuses for player actions  you think are good is biased and goes against the role of being a fair arbiter of the rules of the game as applied to the scene. I happen to disagree. I believe that ANY DM has to right and indeed the responsibility to apply modifiers to the roll. This is because EVERY roll has situational modifiers to the roll. And its the DM's responsibility to apply them. that goes for whether the player knows about them or not, or whether the player thinks they are good. Failing to do so (in ANY system) is your Failure as a DM. Yes, I refer to DnD in particular, but I have DM'ed several systems, and your job as DM in all of them is to present the story to the players,and abjugate it appropriately. That said, I agree with trying to be a fair and unbiased DM. If a Player points out that a situation is in his favor or that a modifier for something you missed might apply, review his argument and include the modifier or tell him no, it doesn't apply this time. Talk about it if you have to, let him know WHY it doesn't apply. That also goes for modifiers that effect the player. You TELL them what you're doing before you let them roll for it. ( in the case of a simple check such as jumping a 30ft deep ravine - apply a modifier to the roll that reflects the fact that the sides of the ravine are unstable, requiring more effort to jump off of as you start your jump. in DnD that would be a +2 modifier to the DC, and totally within the purview of the DM, so it actually doesn't apply to my preferred system. In other systems it might. It is still within the purview of the DM )  as for Dnd, the rules ( as stated in the DMG) have always reflected this. Look it up and read it. I don't have the references on me to give you the location, most likely under running your campaign, but might be somewhere else. But basically it TELLS you that your job is to apply bonuses that arent covered in the rules for situational modifiers and even provides a guideline for doing so. (+2 for good stuff, a -2 for bad stuff ) - good stuff, in my book, being good roleplaying. In fact, I occasionally apply a -2 to situational rolls based on BAD roleplaying. yes. It happens. not very often. But it illustrates to my players that yes, Roleplaying is as important as Rolling the Dice in the game.  I also agree completely with this statement: Roleplaying is making a decision that your character would also make, given the context of the scene in-game.  If I gave the impression of just assigning modifiers for quirky game-play, then I misrepresented my entire argument. ( I DO give bonus XP for roleplaying like that. In fact, my players have the right to vote for an MVP of the night if they did exceptionally well, or did something spectacular. they don't always )   What you present has to fit what your character is, and what your character knows. I have players that constantly try and get bonuses based on the fact that THEY know something is true. If it doesn't fit the character, then it doesn't apply, simple as that. mixing a Molotov cocktail or magyuvring something to work because they can do it themselves (or know how) isn't role-playing at all. Its meta-gaming. you don't get bonuses for that. But, if you can think of something that might apply to the situation at hand, then feel free to present it to the DM - only  a bad DM will dismiss it out of hand. He might not agree - but that his job. you can be sure he will be applying modifiers to the DC of a check based entirely on the situation - and as a DM myself, I see that as nothing more than giving the player a positive of negative modifier. just done from behind the scenes. Cause that's what it is, regardless of your arguments here.

That's one hell of a post Michael! I think your view is absolutely lovely, the problem is that looks like the work of a very skilled GM, despite the disagreements I think I can say we all would love to play as you described! But once the game gets rolling unless the GM AND the players maintain a high level of focus how possible do you think this may be? With that said you asked about paladins, well LS from papers-pencils has wrote an article that describes my love for the idea of paladins! <a href="http://www.paperspencils.com/2011/12/07/no-more-overzealous-paladins/" rel="nofollow">http://www.paperspencils.com/2011/12/07/no-more-overzealous-paladins/</a> Ps; I'm am so gonna take your suggestion on alignments from this point on I love it! As for Iserith, I can really understand your side, I really do. As a GM being unbiased is exactly what we should do, it's the main reason why as a player I don't like using illusions spells, because illusions spells tend to&nbsp;rely upon the player convincing the GM that the illusion will work. Here is an example: PC-Wiz: I cast ghost noise and silent image in the the appearance of some such god. Now then this is straight from ghost noises rules as written:&nbsp; Ghost sound&nbsp; can enhance the effectiveness of a&nbsp; silent image &nbsp; spell.&nbsp; The silent image spell does not give a save unless interacted with. So how do you judge this without bias? The rules do not tell you what the enhancement means! Thats why you're called the Gamer MASTER. This means by consent your players have said. We accept you as the storyteller and thus you have the right to decide what happens when it's unclear or unfair. To tell the story a little further in, I was the wizard and the god I created happened to be a god from a pack of goblins religion, using my knowledge checks I disguised myself as a cleric of there god, created a fake magical circle, and faked sacrificing my friend for a blood ritual. I still had to roll a check with no modifiers or anything other than my stats (and we were playing elite array 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) I did not have the points necessary for a good charisma score, and the bluff had to be rolled at a -1 no matter how much effort I put into this plan or how well I rolled. The goblin clan was 400 strong, with 100 fighters. If I failed the roll we were dead. What's the point of RP if all my rp ends with our deaths because I rolled say a 5? Here is another example from LS from <a href="http://www.paperspencils.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.paperspencils.com</a> : "Intimidate is probably one of the most ridiculous skills in the game. It honestly makes no sense whatsoever. Consider this scenario: you are a humble bartender. One day, a 9ft tall human barbarian starts a fight with some other patrons. Things turn ugly, and the barbarian starts punching people hard enough to smash their brain pans. Dead bodies are starting to pile up, but the barbarian’s rage is just getting started. He draws his axe and cuts your husband in half. He then grabs your 2 year old child by the head, and holds the child up in front of you. “GIVE ME A FREE DRINK OR I’LL CRUSH THE CHILD UNTIL ITS BRAINS OOZE BETWEEN MY FINGERS!” the barbarian shouts. “No free drinks!” you reply. “And you’ll have to pay for those tables you smashed!” Where did you find such courage? Well, the barbarian used charisma as a dump stat, never put any points into intimidate, and only rolled a 1 on his check. Even with the generous +16 circumstance modifier the GM gave him, he failed to overcome your five levels of expert, and wisdom score of 14. Obviously this is an extreme example, but my point is that there are lots of was to be scary: large muscles, brandished weapons, flashy spells, etc. Having the skill tied to charisma makes no sense. Allowing characters to take a feat to substitute their strength makes even less sense, since the feat’s existence seems to acknowledge the problem, yet attempts to solve it by forcing players to jump through a ridiculous hoop." This is part of an ongoing article that adresses the problems in the skill system native to D&amp;D I'm sure people from freeform RPG games would never have this problem being a common theme.

I don't know about a very skilled DM. I HAVE spent a lot of time bringing myself to a comfortable level of knowledge in how I abjugate games, and with that comes confidence. now, If I was your DM (and this IS similar to things that have happened in the past in my games) things would have rolled out like this in this situation (given if you rolled a 5).... &nbsp;"I was the wizard and the god I created happened to be a god from a pack of goblins religion, using my knowledge checks I disguised myself as a cleric of there god, created a fake magical circle, and faked sacrificing my friend for a blood ritual. I still had to roll a check with no modifiers or anything other than my stats (and we were playing elite array 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) I did not have the points necessary for a good charisma score, and the bluff had to be rolled at a -1 no matter how much effort I put into this plan or how well I rolled. The goblin clan was 400 strong, with 100 fighters. If I failed the roll we were dead. What's the point of RP if all my rp ends with our deaths because I rolled say a 5? " Firstly, your bluff check DC would have been modified heavily for actually a visible god and appropriate sounds and further buffed from the fact they just saw you sacrifice a living, non-illusion sacrifice. I probably would have put the DC of the bluff around 10. I mean, Its entirely believable, you've provided plenty of 'fact' to go with your attempt, and its not outside the realm of possibility that a band of goblins is extremely superstitious. Even rolling a 5 (assuming your actual was 6-1) thats within five points of the DC. This allows some leeway. In this particular case, I would have ruled that you didn't fool all the goblins. in fact, though your display DID frighten and cower MOST of the population, several fighters, the chieftain and the shaman of the tribe were not fooled, and they are the ones coming at you while the rest of the population is in turmoil, running around in panic or hiding themselves from the scary god monster that appeared in their midst.&nbsp; My second point is that the illusion is believed or not believed based on the goblins spell save, NOT your bluff check. So they believe your illusion based on their save. If they believe the illusion, even if your bluff check fails they will still believe in the illusion. those that come at you in the end, while providing a hard fight (theoretically speaking) are not an instawipe. Difficult to manage, perhaps, but still managable, and set to an appropriate level of challenge. And of course, your DM, at that very point, created a situation that made you feel as if the entire fate of the campaign rested on your shoulders with the single result of a die roll. Did your DM at the time actually plan it that way? I can't say. But I can say that it was entirely possible you made that bluff check even on a 5. (remember opposed checks vs goblins wisdom - not a hard win. specially with modifiers for the situation taken into account.)&nbsp; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Intimidate is probably one of the most ridiculous skills in the game. It honestly makes no sense whatsoever. Consider this scenario: you are a humble bartender. One day, a 9ft tall human barbarian starts a fight with some other patrons. Things turn ugly, and the barbarian starts punching people hard enough to smash their brain pans. Dead bodies are starting to pile up, but the barbarian’s rage is just getting started. He draws his axe and cuts your husband in half. He then grabs your 2 year old child by the head, and holds the child up in front of you. “GIVE ME A FREE DRINK OR I’LL CRUSH THE CHILD UNTIL ITS BRAINS OOZE BETWEEN MY FINGERS!” the barbarian shouts. “No free drinks!” you reply. “And you’ll have to pay for those tables you smashed!” An extreme example, I must say. But, as DM, you have to consider the consequences of the actions involved. Risk losing the child after watching someone slice your husband in half? not gonna happen (normally - alignment isn't the question here).&nbsp; result of said interaction: bartender hands over a free drink. isn't intimidated, doesnt pee her proverbial pants, but talks down the crazy person in her bar threatening her child. see, natural fear for the safety of her son (I'm making it a boy - DM fiat) leads to trying to save him. Her lack of being intimidated is reflected in the fact that she knows there is a crossbow under the counter and she'll damned well use it if she can't save her son any other way. in fact, as she hands him his drink, she bitterly wishes she had some nightshade to lace it with.&nbsp;

Heh as I said before that's where long experience comes in. Agreed that this example is extreme, but imagine you where the player and not the keeper. The player knows they rolled a 1 even after all this has happened. An unless your players follow this article as an example (posted by Iserith ):&nbsp; <a href="http://lookrobot.co.uk/2013/06/20/11-ways-to-be-a-better-roleplayer/" rel="nofollow">http://lookrobot.co.uk/2013/06/20/11-ways-to-be-a-better-roleplayer/</a> &nbsp;the player might be very tempted to freak out, though this depends entirly on how the DM handled the roll.&nbsp;

@ Michael H.: The style you're suggesting is a highly simulationist one. Are you playing 3.X or Pathfinder? I would add that the situational modifier, if its application is dependent upon agreement from the DM, is effectively gaming the DM, even if it is recommended by the designers. Most do it to incentivize or dis-incentivize a particular behavior as you've described. That's fine, but it is what it is. Not all groups will be okay with that. @ Jason L.: That sounds like 3.X or Pathfinder to me which I no longer play. In any event, my approach would be to ask the player what his character hopes to accomplish with his use of those spells. This would be The Goal - the thing he achieves with a level-appropriate high DC skill check, or on a medium DC skill check with a context-relevant complication. (Establishing this is known as "framing" which outlines the dramatic question to be answered by the challenge.) Before the roll, the player could declare the use of ghost sound as an asset and take a +2 to the roll using his own judgment and avoiding having to sell me on the idea. Same benefit to the player, but the DM is not involved in the transaction. This avoid bias. It also speaks to the use of the "Yes, and..." method of improvisation which speeds up gaming and improves the flow, especially as it relates to remaining in-character. (As with the next thing I comment on, this situation may call for a skill challenge or complex skill check, depending on the complexity of the scene.) The anecdote is adjudicated wrong from the get-go. Hinging the lives and deaths of the characters on a single roll is generally not appropriate and the stakes suggest a heavy dis-incentive being placed on you due to a biased DM thinking it was a "bad idea." (These are the kinds of situations and rulings that DM bias lead you to in the first place, by the way.) It doesn't pass the smell test for having interesting failure since failure effectively ends the participation of all the players in the game. (Perhaps you think it is okay because of save or die effects in the edition you play?) This would likely be part of a larger skill challenge in 4e. Or a complex skill check in 3.X. The various effects you created using magic could be individually applied as assets by the players to the various skill checks they might make to deal with the complications in that scene. Your Intimidate example is similarly not adjudicated properly. It's not a roll to Intimidate a mundane innkeeper, especially if you have leverage. The barbarian just succeeds. " Yes , and the innkeeper gives you anything you want as long as you don't hurt his loved one." Skill checks are used to simulate the activities of adventurers while adventuring. Is this example scene what an adventurer does on an adventure? Probably not! I could also get into how this doesn't likely fit the theme of heroic fantasy and may be blocking if the group has agreed to play heroic fantasy. Or how this tavern scene likely never had a dramatic question to be answered and should never have been played out. But otherwise, yeah, no roll here.

Iserith said: @ Michael H.: The style you're suggesting is a highly simulationist one. Are you playing 3.X or Pathfinder? I would add that the situational modifier, if its application is dependent upon agreement from the DM, is effectively gaming the DM, even if it is recommended by the designers. Most do it to incentivize or dis-incentivize a particular behavior as you've described. That's fine, but it is what it is. Not all groups will be okay with that. How is gaming the GM any different than gaming the system? Unless you incentivize roleplay from a mechanical standpoint in a *conflict resolution engine* (which is what D&amp;D, especially 4e, is designed to do; the rules are all about determining who succeeds in a given conflict, even if it's Hero v. Environment, Hero v. Hero, Hero v. Villain, or Hero v. Normal), the only thing you end up encouraging is gaming the system itself. Hell, since there's an explicit *rule*: It's listed as the "GM's Best Friend" in 4e (DMG, p. 42) though I've heard it called the "Rule of +/-2" as well. It's existed in D&amp;D since 3e and in other systems for even longer than that (though in different forms than just +/-2; conditional modifiers adjudicated by the GM are pretty much standard for any RP intensive system like the White Wolf games). In 4e, it specifically tells the GM to apply a +2 bonus to favorable circumstance, which, yes, includes intended implementation of a check, or a -2 penalty for an unfavorable circumstance, which, if your character is attempting to Bluff a bandit by saying that you have the entire Kingsguard right behind you to bring them to justice when all they've done is taken out a couple caravans, is unfavorable since you're making a barefaced lie; as a GM, I'd actually apply *more* than just the -2 penalty since it's several orders *above* what would be simply hard to believe. If you're absolutely gun-ho on following the rules, it's *right there* in the rules. If you only allow the dice and stats to influence success and failure, you're not actually following the rules. Especially when you're dealing with social skills where things get *really* fuzzy, if a character attempts to do something that makes only the slightest bit of sense (i.e. trying to use Diplomacy to bribe a hermit that's taken a vow of poverty or trying to convince a wizard that, even though you're in full plate and wielding a sword and shield, you're really a mighty wizard of great renown), it's entirely appropriate to levy conditional penalties. The rule exists specifically because *as the rules themselves admit* the game wasn't designed to handle *every* contingency. It's the GM's job to arbitrate those contingencies and, yes, that means using their own judgement to determine whether a given strategy is more or less likely to succeed than the average. Something else to remember, when telling GMs to follow the rules *absolutely*, if you ever do any kind of custom monster creation, even the creation rules don't cover every possible outcome. The rules simply cover the *simple* stuff like hp, defenses, to hit rolls, etc. Fundamental balance would require that secondary effects be taken out of damage or accuracy somehow, but there are no guidelines or rules for that. The GM has to arbitrate the value of such effects on their own. Even if you're not gaming the GM, the rules *still* require that the GM be able to use their own intuition and judgment to run the game properly. As with the next thing I comment on, this situation may call for a skill challenge or complex skill check, depending on the complexity of the scene. Any time you have the success or failure of a given scenario dependent upon more than one dissimilar actions, especially as it relates to resolving some kind of conflict, a skill challenge or complex skill challenge should *always* be used to determine success. Even if it's not supposed to completely replace combat, the Obsidian Skill Challenge System (btw, one of my favorite home brewed mechanicss *ever*, which has the added benefit of actually having influence from a few 4e developers as well; I *highly* recommend every 4e GM get it and put it into their toolbox as an alternative to traditional skill challenges when those wouldn't make any sense) provides a model that can be effectively applied while *in* combat (or as a precursor *to* combat, where success or failure applies benefits or penalties to the party; my personal favorite use is for situations where the players are attempting to ambush or surprise a group of enemies: failure = players surprised, partial success = no surprise, total success = enemies surprised). The advantage of these systems is that they engage the *entire* party in the rolling and strategy rather than simply having a single player do *everything*. In the previously mentioned scene, there were plenty of possible options for the other players to assist (i.e. provide successes as secondary actors): big melee characters could have made dramatic noises and clanging their armor to enhance the ambiance, the character being "sacrificed" could have made checks to enhance the performance and make the ritual look even *more* gruesome and believable. Hinging success and failure on a single roll for a single player isn't just bad. It's *boring*. *Everyone* should feel the need to get involved in *every* scenario the GM creates or solution that the players come up with. If someone is left out, that's just someone having to watch, which isn't particularly fun for most people. Your Intimidate example is similarly not adjudicated properly. It's not a roll to Intimidate a mundane innkeeper, especially if you have leverage. The barbarian just succeeds. " Yes , and the innkeeper gives you anything you want as long as you don't hurt his loved one." I could also get into how this doesn't likely fit the theme of heroic fantasy and may be blocking if the group has agreed to play heroic fantasy. Or how this tavern scene likely never had a dramatic question to be answered and should never have been played out. But otherwise, yeah, no roll here. While I wouldn't say that it is *never* appropriate to roll to Intimidate a mundane NPC (low level heroic characters aren't *quite* awesome enough to cow anyone and everyone they come across), I'll agree that it's pointless to force rolls on don't necessarily contribute to the game/story (though, once again, that's GM arbitration; even if you don't assign bonuses or penalties, it's up to the GM to decide whether it's an auto success or failure by interpreting how the situation falls within the confines of the desired "drama") unless the point of the excursion is *itself* to go around messing with the populous and waste some time having a bit of fun (I've had players that wanted to roleplay and use dice based interactions to determine exactly how effectively they were when it had no real impact on the story, especially roguish types that create convoluted plans to prank the mayor or captain of the guard; it only had tangential relation to the story, insofar as they might have to deal with the character later, but the *point* was that it was dealing with mundanes that were no threat but was done in such a way that there was still a significant chance of failure). If the Intimidate check were done to force the innkeeper to give the barbarian player the innkeeper's heirloom sword (that's not even magical or only a magic +1 such that it's not even something the players would find particularly useful) that had been in the family for generations ever since an ancestor retired from adventuring with the weapon and bought/built the inn, the "Rule of Mundanes" would say that the Innkeeper just hand it over since you're dealing with a mundane innkeeper: he's not an adventurer, his *ancestor* was. The "Rule of Drama" could be interpreted either way (it's dramatic for the innkeeper to possibly stand up to the barbarian player to defend his ancestor's weapon, but it's also dramatically appropriate for the innkeeper who's never been in a fight his entire life to be reduced to a quivering pile of sobbing flesh and give up the sword because it's just been a mantle piece he never really cared about). It's, once again, up to the GM to arbitrate it's all, which is, as you refer to it, gaming the GM. No RPG is going to be able to have rules that cover *every imaginable situation* such that the GM only acts as the implementer of the rules. The GM will *always* have to apply their own judgment and perceptions of said actions to ensure that the game actually works. Sometimes this means that the players can game the GM a bit. Some GMs (or players that have been on the receiving end of a GM that was *really* easy to game and/or never opted in their favor) become rigid at the prospect of not being "completely neutral" and refuse to do any of the required judgment and interpretation, which, in all of my experiences, just keeps encouraging progressively more and more outlandish behaviors. It's for this same situation that I'm not particularly fond of a roleplaying system that focuses *entirely* on "Yes, and...". My preferred method is actually "No, but..." (if something doesn't make sense for the game world or is unrealistic, I'll tell the players no and then explain why it's wrong/makes no sense and provide options that follow the same line of thought while actually being feasibly implemented), and all of the players of my games have actively *thanked me for doing so*. In my way of doing things, I provide bonuses for players that come up with options that I can respond to with "Yes, and.." while providing penalties for behaviors that I have to debate responding with "No, but...". Yes, it's GM adjudication rather than following the rules to a tee, as if they were set in stone and variations are not even *thinkable*, but it preserves a sense of reality, even within the construct of the power fantasy that such games cultivate, and, more importantly, GM *vision* about how the game is intended to go. Any great game is going to be a compromise between roleplaying and rollplaying: the first insofar as the interpretation and application of actions makes sense within the world itself and governing/affecting the probability of such an action actually succeeding compared to the "average" construct; the second insofar as using the rules and attributes that govern your character's training and natural talent to further affect that probability in a non-judgmental manner and rolls so as to create the desired level of randomness to determine success and failure within the designated probabilities. By using the characters' stats and the dice roll to be the *only* arbiter of success (i.e. GM not applying bonuses/penalties for certain actions/behaviors/ideas), you're only doing roll-play because the *way* things are done doesn't matter in the least which can easily break suspension of disbelief. If you focus entirely on role-play and use GM arbitration for *everything*, you might as well swap over to a dice-less system where you're really just trading improvisational dialogue. Both of these methods of playing the game are fine, if all you care about is rolling dice or playing roles, but a *great* game, which everyone remembers for years to come, is only possible when you fuse the *both* of them and don't let *either* trump the other.

@ Kitru: The difference between using the rules of the game and trying to sell the DM of your logic, realism, consistency, good idea, good roleplaying, or what have you is plain to see. I'm aware that the rules say that the DM is empowered to grant a +2/-2 bonus to the situation. It's still a bad idea. Someone like me who is a creative, persuasive, experienced player will always get the bonus. Others who are not inherently as creative or experienced may not, or may be penalized at the whim of the DM. And if I know I can get that bonus every time, I will get all sorts of freebies all the time as I game and lobby the DM, guaranteed. Mind you, if that's the dynamic at play in your group and everyone's fine with it, go ahead. Generally speaking, I don't think it's good game design or a good approach. You can still offer the bonus as an option to the player. Just let them choose to take it themselves with non-blocking justification. This requires no gaming the DM, lobbying, or anything. In short, by being biased, players who are good at selling out-of-game will do better in-game; others who are not as good at selling will not do as well. That's not playing within the bounds of the game. It's flirting with the banker in Monopoly to get some extra cash. The PHB has rules for when to call for skill checks. On page 178 it tells you that they are for non-mundane, dramatic situations. More broadly, they are simulations of skills adventurers use while adventuring. The scene as described isn't any of that. No roll. 4e has very smartly included "Yes, and..." in the DMG and DMG2. "No, but..." or "Yes, but" before a roll is blocking, straight-up. Since an RPG is an improvised collaboration within a framework of mechanics for conflict resolution, improvisational blocking (q.v.) of any kind is a hindrance to play. HOWEVER, you'd have to know what blocking is to understand this. I can describe it more fully if you like, but according to what you're saying, you're reserving the right to say "No" to player ideas that are themselves blocking . Saying "no" to a player who is blocking is not blocking and is thus not the same as rejecting "Yes, and..." as a concept. A group that embraces "Yes, and..." understands it's an opportunity and a responsibility. It's not just the DM who says, "Yes, and..." - it's the players, too. They can't block and neither can the DM. Read up on this. You will probably find we are on the same page in philosophy if not approach. There is no trade-off for roleplaying and "rollplaying" because that is a false dichotomy. You're not roleplaying any less by using dice or mechanics. You're likely still making decisions your character would make given context which is the only threshold for whether or not someone is roleplaying. Anything above and beyond that is just telegraphing those decisions to the group. It is not roleplaying in and of itself.

Iserith said: Someone like me who is a creative, persuasive, experienced player will always get the bonus. Any GM who *always* gives someone a bonus is doing it wrong. I can assure that, at best, you might get 1-2 bonuses to rolls in any skill challenge in my game. A lot of this comes down to GM experience actually being capable of identifying and quantifying good roleplaying as it applies to applicable rewards within the abstraction of the rules. You might be able to plow over a newbie GM because you've got a lot of experience, but any GM that *isn't* a newbie is going to be able to actually keep you from bowling them over. I find it almost comical (and, as a GM that does this, more than a bit insulting) that you act as if it's impossible for any GM to resist the sheer *awesomeness* of your roleplaying chops. Whether you could or could not depends entirely upon the GM. You're only deluding yourself if you think it will always be guaranteed. It's supposed to be a conditional reward. If you are ever able to *assume* you can&nbsp; get the +2 bonus, your GM is a bad GM. +2 bonus follow suit with the same way that, if you come up with a good but not planned on use of a ritual or non-listed skill in a skill check, the GM shouldn't simply tell you that it's not in the rules. If the player can justify it, you're supposed to allow them to use it (but restrict this use to once per challenge to prevent players from completely bypassing the planned skill challenge). This exact same model should be use for justification of the primary skills themselves: if you can come up with an excellent use (i.e. justification) for a listed skill, the GM is supposed to reward them with a greater advantage (and not allow them to continually use that same roleplay justification/explanation to continually gain the bonus over and over again); if you come up with an idea that is only mediocre, there's no problem; if you come up with a use that is *less* likely to succeed than a basic attempt (trying to run Diplomacy immediately after you just tried to Intimidate them and failed), the GM should levy a penalty. Read up on this. You will probably find we are on the same page in philosophy if not approach. I'm quite familiar with the "Yes, and..." philosophy and I *used* to run my games using it very heavily. I'm not speaking about it from a position of ignorance. The addition of the "No, but..." philosophy is something of an evolution, as I see it. I moved on from "Yes, and..." when I recognized that, while it was *amazing* for home brew systems that had a lot of open space for cooperative world-building and creative problem solving, it didn't work any established campaign construct. I'm not averse to "Yes, and...". I'm averse to the exclusive and/or *overuse* of "Yes, and...", which I see happen *all* to often. My guess is that we, most likely, have only slight differences in the way we GM, which would make sense since, yes, we both are, at a minimum, at least *somewhat* defined by our experiences within running with "Yes, and...", but I'm not sure I necessarily agree that we're *entirely* on the same page. We're most definitely in the same chapter, and quite possibly very close but on different paragraphs, though (to extend the metaphor a bit more). There is no trade-off for roleplaying and "rollplaying" because that is a false dichotomy. You're applying the semantic definition of "roleplaying" rather than the intended definition. The semantic definition of roleplaying can be applied to *anyone* playing any kind of game. With *that* definition, people playing Call of Duty are playing a roleplaying game because they're playing the role of soldier in a war by running around shooting the bad guys. I'm pretty sure that no one who actually plays an actual roleplaying game, where you're playing a *character* rather than a generic allotment of stats on a sheet of paper, would call a CoD player a roleplayer. *That* is the difference between "roleplaying" and "rollplaying". If someone just moves around the field declaring their use of attacks and rolling attack/damage, and, in the scant few times they are forced to do anything when *not* in combat, they simply declare the skill they're going to use rather than the actual manner of use, they're "rollplaying", not "roleplaying". At that point, there's no difference between playing a video game and playing a tabletop. "Roleplaying" only happens when you have someone actually make something *more* out of the allotment of numbers on their character sheet: they create an individual in their mind and in the game world that is actually *different* than someone that made the same character creation choices. It's also a matter of magnitude. There are some "rollplayers" that just make generic characters and run them normally; there are other "rollplayers" that are obsessed with character optimization. The two types of "rollplayers" both follow the same school, but the latter differentiates itself by "rollplaying" *more*. You'll find a similar approach amongst "roleplayers" as well: some people create a bare bones character that has some basic backstory and motivations and others that go straight into the deep end, coming up with fully written backstories that approach novels, family histories, full on mindsets, and even tracking their character's evolving appearance as combat scars their gear and their bodies (I have seen a *single* player who went *this* in depth in the 20 years I've been playing PnPs). Now, I'm also not going to say that, within an individual player, that there is an explicit trade off between roleplaying and rollplaying. There are some *very* strong tendencies (roleplayers rarely rollplay very intensely and rollplayers very rarely do any particular degree of roleplaying), but it's not like you have to choose between one or the other. *Games* on the other hand, are almost *required* to choose between one or the other. There simply isn't enough *time* to sufficiently cover the interests of players that rollplay and those that roleplay (rollplaying focuses almost entirely on combat whereas roleplay generally focuses on the noncombat aspects of the game). The best you can hope for is a favorable compromise where you have a healthy amount of *both* such that they don't impede each other. I can tell you from experience where there is a *very* nice sweet spot for games that provides you with plenty of opportunity for rollplaying and roleplaying *together*, such that it adds up to more than a game focused on either would manage. It's hard to hit and, because it depends upon your players, it's a moving goal, even from one game to the next.

@ Kitru: Even if success is not guaranteed as you say, you're now describing a DM that engages in blocking when he feels like it too. That's just as bad as a biased DM, worse even (though blocking is inherently a sign of bias anyway). This is so inconsistent as to be infringing upon a player's ability to make meaningful choices with regard to judging risk and reward. The DM is better served by never putting himself in this position in my view. And yes, I firmly believe my roleplaying chops and sales ability would allow me to game any DM I sit down with.&nbsp;A DM that can be gamed is a DM that can be gamed. I can't be when I DM because I don't set myself up to be. Interestingly, a biased DM who engages in blocking is actually discouraging his players from engaging in the types of interactions he often professes to want to see. Why would I want to risk being spontaneously creative if I have to worry about meeting the DM's bar to earn a bonus, or avoid a penalty, or to be told "No, but..."? In games that I host, those aren't concerns of the players, and even the guys you would call a "rollplayer" engage in all the interactions you would associate with a "roleplayer." Anyone who has played in my pick-up games on Roll20 could tell you this. What you've said about "Yes, and..." indicates to me that you do not have experience with it or that your knowledge is incomplete in some way. Above, you indicated you prefer to reserve the right to say "No, but..." when a player is suggesting something that doesn't make sense or is "unrealistic." Here, I'll assume you mean to say "not conceivably possible in context" or "inconsistent" since we're playing in a fantasy world where concerns about realism can be sidelined. Anyone who actually understands "Yes, and..." would know that when a player is suggesting something that doesn't make sense or is "unrealistic" is violating "Yes, and..." by blocking (contradicting established fiction). Since it's the obligation of everyone at the table to avoid blocking, then reserving the right to say, "No, but..." is not required. People who understand and use "Yes, and..." (the foundation for improvisational acting) know this. If someone is blocking, it would be obvious and pointed out by the group. As to roleplaying and "rollplaying," what you're describing is a roleplayer that doesn't communicate his roleplaying in ways that other people erroneously call "roleplaying." I'll add (with regard to your last paragraph) that it wasn't me who was separating roleplaying and using the mechanics of the game. I understand what roleplaying is, what it means to communicate or telegraph that roleplaying, and how it works with the rules and mechanics of the game. I'm not the one drawing a line in the sand and putting one group of players over here and another over there. That's elitist and based in a complete misunderstanding of what these things mean. The guy who asks to make a Diplomacy check to convince the king of something the characters find important and the guy who makes a passionate, Oscar-worthy speech for the same reason are both roleplaying. If you want to say that the latter guy is more entertaining to you and you'd rather have him at your game than the other guy, say that . But don't call the first guy a "rollplayer." It's divisive to the hobby and serves no real purpose except to cast judgment and aspersions on players that aren't necessarily as creative or outgoing as you or me - or who may not have had the opportunity to play with a DM who knows what he's talking about.

Iserith said: @ Kitru: Even if success is not guaranteed as you say, you're now describing a DM that engages in blocking when he feels like it too. That's just as bad as a biased DM, worse even (though blocking is inherently a sign of bias anyway). This is so inconsistent as to be infringing upon a player's ability to make meaningful choices with regard to judging risk and reward. The DM is better served by never putting himself in this position in my view. First off, *every* GM should be biased. If a GM *weren't* biased in favor of the players, s/he could just drop an unwinnable fight upon the players. They should also be biased in running a game that plays to the players *strengths* rather than their weaknesses. Secondly, you're making a giant leap between saying that any GM bias infringes upon the player's ability to make meaningful choices or that any infringement that the GM might enact upon the making of said choices is an automatically bad thing. The actions players take are not made in a vacuum. If another player suggests a course of action or takes a course of action that directly prevents the other player from *taking* that action, that player is infringing upon the player's ability to make meaningful decisions. When you're dealing with forceful players, a GM needs to go out of their way to *reduce* the ability for those players to make meaningful decisions so that the *other*, more meek players, can actually make their own meaningful decisions rather than *always* having to follow suit with the players that force themselves ahead. It's also of great interest to me that you're either incapable of or explicitly choosing not to frame the debate in a neutral manner with your explicit use of strong positive connotations concerning your own views and negative connotations for any imaginable contradictory view (your repeated use of calling a GM "biased" or "unbiased"; semantically, they may be appropriate terms but the connotation is pretty obvious; "blocking" as well). You're arguing as if any kind of influence by the GM upon the players is the worst possible thing that could *ever* happen and actively demonizing it while hypocritically saying that you're *not* by dismissively denigrating anyone that chooses to run a game in the manner different from yours. GM intercession is not an innately terrible thing, which you seem to have built your *entire* philosophy around (Yes, and... is a *very* player focused philosophy that actively encourages GMs to minimize their influence on the game). It is a *risky* thing that can be bad if used in the hands of a *bad* GM (which I'm guessing you've had more than your fair share of dealing with), but, in the hands of a *good* GM, it elevates the game high above what a "Yes, and..." game is capable of. Risk is not necessarily a bad thing, especially when it's *controllable* risk. Your style means you're probably a pretty good salesman. This doesn't however mean you're capable of gaming me since, you know, *I actually pay attention* nor does it mean that your point is even remotely correct (the art of sales is pretty much defined as doing exactly what you're doing rather than actually looking at things in a neutral or analytical manner, because, you know, it doesn't care about the *truth*, it cares about *winning the argument* in any way possible). I *very rarely* outright prevent my players from doing something (such as if a Lawful Good Paladin of Pelor decides to go out and find an innkeeper to beat on for no reason because the player had a bad day at work; it might be a player decision, but it makes *absolutely no sense* for the character outside of some *very* specific conditions (this action is in a questionable region of "blocking" since, you know, you might be able to justify the Paladin having a bad day and doing something very questionable or build a specific character story upon a fall from grace or attempt to atone that was triggered by it). What I *do* do, which counts as "blocking" according to you is, to use a metaphor, returning the decision to them and tell them to refine it until it is something I would accept. I even provide suggestions for how they could refine it (multiple solutions almost always, meaning that the players *still* have a meaningful decision to make concerning the revision) and encourage the other players to help them out. Conversely, they're always allowed to completely change the idea until the dice is rolled. What I do is, according to you, technically considered "blocking" because I'm preventing the player from doing something they wish to do in its "raw" form, however, a *vast* majority of players that I have run with over my multitudinous years of experience, new and experienced players both, consider this to be an *extremely positive* aspect of my GM style. There are a few players who absolutely refuse to allow any kind of GM interaction with their character, but they generally leave my game or learn to like it. I recognize that not every game will be fun for everyone (if you honestly believe this, you're deluding yourself as much as WotC is deluding themselves into believing that they can design D&amp;D Next such that it satisfies players of 1e, 2e, 3e, Pathfinder, and 4e; not everyone likes the same stuff and a *lot* of what we're talking about is mutually exclusive). The two styles of GMing we use are, in no way, explicitly better than one or the other. I know from experience that your style is excellent for one shot adventures, which is just fine if that's what you want to use (I actually use explicit "Yes, and" for one-shot and micro-campaigns because it's not like the investment in the game is particularly deep nor will any bad decisions last particularly long; I'm not particularly fond of one shots or micro campaigns because I've done so many of those that they seem boring; at most, I'll run a few experimental one-shots with a group while working on another campaign). I also know from experience that my style works *incredibly well* with both new players and long term campaigns. Neither one is better than the other, which you have been doing your damnedest (whether consciously or unconsciously) to convince any readers that it is the case. It's also largely the same goal, though, with a different implementation: instead of running with any idea that comes along (Yes, and...) to keep the game moving quickly, my style focuses upon refining the decisions and constructs (No, but...)so that the players end up having and learning to make interesting, effective decisions and well informed, functional actions that keep a long term campaign consistent (which most campaigns have a tendency to deviate from the longer they're played). And, yes, as GM, since I'm the arbiter of the game and the rules, I have no problem being the arbiter of quality as well. Once again, no game is going to keep every potential player happy. If you don't like the decisions the GM makes or think that their view of the game/universe conflicts with yours, you're not being *forced* to stay in the game. If you're not enjoying it, you should leave (as a GM, I've left a game because, after 3 games, I'd found that the players weren't enjoying the game I was running and wanted to have me run it differently; it's not my job so I didn't feel compelled to run a game that I wouldn't enjoy running so I left). No GM should try to make sure everyone is happy because, at best, it will just end up with everyone only mildly content (fun, but not really memorable or amazing; a mediocre game, really) and, at worst, everyone bored. You'll only ever get games that are well and truly *amazingly fun* when you have a game that isn't afraid of doing things that people *not* playing the game don't like doing. Play the game that *you* want to play, whether it's incredibly free form (Yes, and...) or tightly focused (No, but...). And yes, I firmly believe my roleplaying chops and sales ability would allow me to game any DM I sit down with. Unless you're such an amazing salesperson that you have a 100% sales success rate (when, you know, an *amazingly good* salesman has closer to a 10-15% sales rate), I'm gonna call bullshit on this. Any even *remotely* experienced GM isn't going to be gamed anywhere *close* to where you think you could manage with your supposedly unstoppable sales/RP wiles. Interestingly, a biased DM who engages in blocking is actually discouraging his players from engaging in the types of interactions he often professes to want to see. Why would I want to risk being spontaneously creative if I have to worry about meeting the DM's bar to earn a bonus, or avoid a penalty, or to be told "No, but..."? Except that players *learn* to make ideas that don't generate penalties within the confines of my GMing style, not to mention that penalty incurring ideas are relatively common sense as to *why* they incur penalties (I've almost never had a player contend a penalty I applied to them when I pointed out the weakness of it; I've also had players that *chose* to accept the penalty because they found it to be the more interesting option and would provide them with a better story if it succeeded). There's a difference between an *interesting* idea and an idea that incurs a penalty. The penalty or bonus is applied based upon the likelihood of the idea to succeed compared to what an average take on the problem would be, not just how much the GM likes it (I've given bonuses to ideas that I *really* wasn't fond of, but the player made an excellent case as to why it would be more effective). It doesn't take all that many games for players to start understanding what the GM views as appropriate (and pretty much *always* what the rest of the group agrees with as well; like I said, a gaming group that plays more than one game together almost always generate similar heuristics to one another; it's basic psychology). From that point on, it becomes a question about honing down *good* ideas, and, as good ideas continue to become more and more common, since "good" and "bad' are defined by an evolving temporal heuristic, the magnitude of said "goodness" has to increase to achieve the same visibility as before. Conversely, if there is a dearth of well and truly interesting "good" ideas, the heuristic requirement for them goes *down* since the proximity of good ideas has increased. Even if you assume that GMs are naturally biased, unless you use a completely uncompromising view of what is "good" or "bad" that never varies, the "requirements" will normalize based upon the performance of the group as a whole. In games that I host, those aren't concerns of the players, and even the guys you would call a "rollplayer" engage in all the interactions you would associate with a "roleplayer." Anyone who has played in my pick-up games on Roll20 could tell you this. As I said, and you apparently missed, in a *player*, the rollplay and roleplay aspects/strengths are exist independent one another. I see nothing strange about some players that rollplay by character optimizing, memorizing rules, and choosing optimal paths also being capable of turning a character into a fully fledged interesting character. That's what *I* do. However, the game *itself* isn't going to be able to manage boatloads of both roleplay and rollplay. The best it can hope for is finding medium between the two that exists in the spot on the roll v. role continuum that is the best for the group. As to roleplaying and "rollplaying," what you're describing is a roleplayer that doesn't communicate his roleplaying in ways that other people erroneously call "roleplaying." There's a difference between not knowing *how* to telegraph, communicate, and imply certain intentions, behaviors, and thought processes that *wanting* to do so. There are *loads* of players that simply *do not* want to do any of that. *These* are pure rollplayers. They have no interest in roleplaying and are just there to roll dice and beat up monsters. I have one player in one of my campaigns who is *explicitly* like this. He has *no* interest in roleplaying at all. He just wants to beat up monsters and save the world without talking to anything *in* the world. He interacts with everything exclusively through the numbers on his character sheet and the dice rolls he so readily throws out. He isn't attempting to play a role. He's searching for the optimal solution to any situation so as to perform whatever he's attempting to do as efficiently as possible. He chooses everything for his character based upon effectiveness with no concern for what possible justification might be needed (when I get involved and try to finagle things and provide options that make his character make sense for the setting and some kind of cohesive backstory, he listens only as much as is required to get his option justified or manipulated until it fits and then promptly forgets about it when the game starts). *That* type of player is completely a rollplayer and not a roleplayer. Once again, there's nothing wrong with him. He's a good friend of mine and has been a part of my group for over 5 years. He's an excellent addition to the party even if he doesn't roleplay at all and works beautifully and is incredibly amused by the antics of the 2 very *intensive* roleplayers that also belong to the same group. I'll add (with regard to your last paragraph) that it wasn't me who was separating roleplaying and using the mechanics of the game. I separate the constructs but this does not mean that I believe that they are mutually exclusive to any extent. Every player exists someone on both continua. If there were a scale of 1-10 for each, I'm likely a 10 rollplayer (I *love* doing charOp and am highly knowledgeable about the rules) while an 8 roleplayer (I love getting into character and thinking about how I could possibly create interesting backstories and justifications for said wonky optimized characters; I thoroughly enjoy being as creative as I can within given limitations; I find it pushes me to get *more* creative; I also get *very* active in campaigns, getting into my characters mindset and I've even managed to roleplay a low Charisma gruff anti-social character while actually getting him *involved* in the campaign and the rest of the characters). *Every* player exists somewhere on these continua, not every player will know *where* they exist (many new players will have absolutely no idea; one of the biggest rollplayers I've dealt with got into gaming as a roleplayer and discovered that he found character optimization more fun than the backstory/roleplaying he originally got into the hobby to do), and most players will actually slide around on those continua depending upon the campaign or even time of year (I've seen finals time in college/university shift an engineer from pure rollplayer to pure roleplayer because they just wanted a break from numbers and the stress of remembering real life for a while). It's divisive to the hobby and serves no real purpose except to cast judgment and aspersions on players that aren't necessarily as creative or outgoing as you or me - or who may not have had the opportunity to play with a DM who knows what he's talking about. Personally, I don't see it as divisive in any content. It's simply an analytical look at determine what certain people enjoy as part of gaming. As a GM, figuring out what your players *want* out of a game is *incredibly* important. The different motivations and interests are no better than the other. They're different. *Knowing* about the differences, however, allows you to be a better GM. It's not casting aspersions; it's gaining more knowledge about the subject as a whole. I get the feeling that the both of us are coming from the same conclusions from *very* different directions. I come at gaming and GMing from a *very* analytical standpoint. I figure out what my players and I want out of the game and then mold the game to make sure that we *all* enjoy it as much as possible, while also working to ensure that the game is as *memorable* as possible (which means that sometimes players will experience a bit of a doldrum, but the human memory remembers intense emotions more than average emotional state so my goal isn't to provide contentment constantly but rather at least 1 major spike of exultation per player per game). I'm also big on generating tension as a dramatic device (attrition adventures that finish with a big spike so that the players finish off with their characters bleeding and beaten, but definitively winning; forcing them to think outside of the box to use nonstandard solutions) so that the players get to experience the joy of success more acutely. My goal is to *spike* my players' interest rather than keep it constantly piqued. I'm inferring (correct me if I'm wrong) that you try to get the players to *build* the game into one that they enjoy by specifically inserting their desires into the game. Your goal seems to be creating a situation where everyone enjoys themselves consistently without ever experiences any doldrums or long term tension (you can have short term tension based upon a roll but it generally takes GM intervention placing limits upon players to generate interesting long term, growing tension; not always though). Both of us want to see our players find what they want out of the game and then proceed to enjoy the game. We just have pretty opposing methods of arriving at those goals (which I'm guessing is primarily responsible for much of this debate thus far).

First off, *every* GM should be biased. If a GM *weren't* biased in favor of the players, s/he could just drop an unwinnable fight upon the players. The rules of the game prescribe how to set up challenges for the PCs. Are you saying an unbiased GM would break the rules? Secondly, you're making a giant leap between saying that any GM bias infringes upon the player's ability to make meaningful choices or that any infringement that the GM might enact upon the making of said choices is an automatically bad thing. The actions players take are not made in a vacuum. If another player suggests a course of action or takes a course of action that directly prevents the other player from *taking* that action, that player is infringing upon the player's ability to make meaningful decisions. When you're dealing with forceful players, a GM needs to go out of their way to *reduce* the ability for those players to make meaningful decisions so that the *other*, more meek players, can actually make their own meaningful decisions rather than *always* having to follow suit with the players that force themselves ahead. Knowing a DC you need to hit at a given level, for example, is used by players to judge the potential efficacy of their actions in the context of he game. If they have to also guess whether their DM will give them a bonus or a penalty based on the perceived quality of their ideas or acting ability, or wonder whether the DM is just pulling DCs out of thin air, then that decision-making is potentially muddled. A player taking a course of action that directly prevents another player from taking an action is probably blocking and therefore unacceptable at our table. I say "probably" because we lack context here. Blocking is the opposite of "Yes, and..." In a "Yes, and..." group, it's not the role of the DM to police participation. Everyone polices that for themselves. "Meek" players simply cannot be blocked by more "forceful" players. Blocking is forbidden - nobody at the table, even the DM, can do it. Outside of social anxiety disorders, do you know why there are so many meek players? Fear of being blocked by the DM or the other players. It's also of great interest to me that you're either incapable of or explicitly choosing not to frame the debate in a neutral manner with your explicit use of strong positive connotations concerning your own views and negative connotations for any imaginable contradictory view (your repeated use of calling a GM "biased" or "unbiased"; semantically, they may be appropriate terms but the connotation is pretty obvious; "blocking" as well). You're arguing as if any kind of influence by the GM upon the players is the worst possible thing that could *ever* happen and actively demonizing it while hypocritically saying that you're *not* by dismissively denigrating anyone that chooses to run a game in the manner different from yours. First, I'm going to tell you what blocking is because you seem to intimate that it's a loaded term that I'm using for tonal effect. It's an actual thing, a term from improvisational acting. Here then is how it applies to RPGs: Blocking the opposite of saying "Yes, and..." It's also called "denial." This destroys or stops the addition of new information or negates what has already been established. Blocking is a way of minimizing the impact of new information. It is also a method for a player or DM to play it safe and avoid vulnerability by seizing or maintaining control. Blocking at its simplest levels involves saying "No" or avoiding a subject. At a more advanced level, blocking is something that keeps the action from moving forward or the characters from changing. I would suggest we agree to employ the principle of charity in this discussion and assume that whatever tone may be implied by word usage is the best, most positive tone possible to further honest discussion. It's rather pointless and unproductive to discuss each other's tone. GM intercession is not an innately terrible thing, which you seem to have built your *entire* philosophy around (Yes, and... is a *very* player focused philosophy that actively encourages GMs to minimize their influence on the game). It is a *risky* thing that can be bad if used in the hands of a *bad* GM (which I'm guessing you've had more than your fair share of dealing with), but, in the hands of a *good* GM, it elevates the game high above what a "Yes, and..." game is capable of. Risk is not necessarily a bad thing, especially when it's *controllable* risk. "Yes, and..." doesn't at all encourage GMs to minimize their influence on the game. It encourages everyone to maximize their influence. It encourages parity between GM and players when collaborating on the game. You seem to think "Yes, and..." is a one-way street; it's not - it works player-to-player, GM-to-player, and player-to-GM. &nbsp;RPGs are an improvised collaboration in a framework of rule and mechanics for conflict resolution. These games therefore&nbsp; excel when the group employs the principles of improvisation and collaborative roleplay. I *very rarely* outright prevent my players from doing something (such as if a Lawful Good Paladin of Pelor decides to go out and find an innkeeper to beat on for no reason because the player had a bad day at work; it might be a player decision, but it makes *absolutely no sense* for the character outside of some *very* specific conditions (this action is in a questionable region of "blocking" since, you know, you might be able to justify the Paladin having a bad day and doing something very questionable or build a specific character story upon a fall from grace or attempt to atone that was triggered by it). Based on what you've established above, it's more likely the player is blocking in this instance by negating what has already been established about his character. Check the definition I offered up-thread. What I *do* do, which counts as "blocking" according to you is, to use a metaphor, returning the decision to them and tell them to refine it until it is something I would accept. I even provide suggestions for how they could refine it (multiple solutions almost always, meaning that the players *still* have a meaningful decision to make concerning the revision) and encourage the other players to help them out. Conversely, they're always allowed to completely change the idea until the dice is rolled. What I do is, according to you, technically considered "blocking" because I'm preventing the player from doing something they wish to do in its "raw" form, however, a *vast* majority of players that I have run with over my multitudinous years of experience, new and experienced players both, consider this to be an *extremely positive* aspect of my GM style. If the player is blocking by negating what has already been established about his character, you are not blocking for asking him about it out-of-game. Do you see the difference now? There is a fine line here, however: Sometimes characters suddenly change due to character development. The player should be asked if he perceives this to be the case. In any event, a player that knows and is acting in good faith with the principles of improvisation doesn't block in the first place , so this situation would probably never happen at a table like mine (hasn't yet, anyway). Does it happen at yours? The two styles of GMing we use are, in no way, explicitly better than one or the other. Did I&nbsp; say&nbsp; one style was better than the other? I think not. In fact, I think said many times and in different ways that any approach will work given player buy-in. I&nbsp; prefer&nbsp; one over the other, certainly. I know from experience that your style is excellent for one shot adventures, which is just fine if that's what you want to use (I actually use explicit "Yes, and" for one-shot and micro-campaigns because it's not like the investment in the game is particularly deep nor will any bad decisions last particularly long; I'm not particularly fond of one shots or micro campaigns because I've done so many of those that they seem boring; at most, I'll run a few experimental one-shots with a group while working on another campaign). I know from experience that "Yes, and..." works for all kinds of campaigns and all kinds of games because RPGs are, in fact, based on improvisation. You want deep? Play a game where nobody blocks anyone else and the characters develop in the face of continuing conflict and drama over the long-term. instead of running with any idea that comes along (Yes, and...) to keep the game moving quickly, my style focuses upon refining the decisions and constructs (No, but...)so that the players end up having and learning to make interesting, effective decisions and well informed, functional actions that keep a long term campaign consistent (which most campaigns have a tendency to deviate from the longer they're played). Who decides when something is refined enough to be acceptable? Who decides if they are "interesting, effective decisions" or "well-informed, functional actions?" I would add that "Yes, and..." is ENTIRELY about consistency because you're forbidden from contradicting existing fiction. And, yes, as GM, since I'm the arbiter of the game and the rules, I have no problem being the arbiter of quality as well. Ah, that answered my questions above. I would just have to learn what you consider quality to win your game. Easy enough. Once again, no game is going to keep every potential player happy. I seem to have no problem with this. If you're not enjoying it, you should leave I agree. No GM should try to make sure everyone is happy because, at best, it will just end up with everyone only mildly content (fun, but not really memorable or amazing; a mediocre game, really) and, at worst, everyone bored.&nbsp; It's not the role of the GM to make everyone happy and entertained. It's everyone's role to do that. Play the game that *you* want to play, whether it's incredibly free form (Yes, and...) or tightly focused (No, but...). I wouldn't say "Yes, and..." is "incredibly free-form." There are rules and mechanics in whatever game you're playing that tell you how to resolve actions and conflict. I wouldn't necessarily say "No, but..." is tightly focused either. It's just, to me, boring and contentious as we try to guess which idea the GM imagines meets his threshold for sufficient quality to get on with the game already. Or as the players block each other in endless failure mitigation discussions instead of moving forward at a reasonable pace. I'm pretty sure anyone reading this knows what I'm talking about on that score. Except that players *learn* to make ideas that don't generate penalties within the confines of my GMing style... ...It doesn't take all that many games for players to start understanding what the GM views as appropriate... Right, they're learning to play YOU, not THE GAME. Thanks for making my point for me. I don't think that's a good approach, but if your players and you like it, keep on doing it. Even if you assume that GMs are naturally biased, unless you use a completely uncompromising view of what is "good" or "bad" that never varies, the "requirements" will normalize based upon the performance of the group as a whole. In my approach, as long as proposed action isn't blocking, it's valid and gets adjudicated according to the mechanics of the game. The dice determine if the idea was good or bad, not the GM or other players. As I said, and you apparently missed, in a *player*, the rollplay and roleplay aspects/strengths are exist independent one another. I see nothing strange about some players that rollplay by character optimizing, memorizing rules, and choosing optimal paths also being capable of turning a character into a fully fledged interesting character. That's what *I* do. However, the game *itself* isn't going to be able to manage boatloads of both roleplay and rollplay. The best it can hope for is finding medium between the two that exists in the spot on the roll v. role continuum that is the best for the group. You're still talking as if "players that rollplay by character optimizing, memorizing rules, and choosing optimal paths" aren't roleplaying. This is not true. There's a difference between not knowing *how* to telegraph, communicate, and imply certain intentions, behaviors, and thought processes that *wanting* to do so. There are *loads* of players that simply *do not* want to do any of that. *These* are pure rollplayers. They have no interest in roleplaying and are just there to roll dice and beat up monsters. I have one player in one of my campaigns who is *explicitly* like this. He has *no* interest in roleplaying at all. He just wants to beat up monsters and save the world without talking to anything *in* the world. He interacts with everything exclusively through the numbers on his character sheet and the dice rolls he so readily throws out. He isn't attempting to play a role. He's searching for the optimal solution to any situation so as to perform whatever he's attempting to do as efficiently as possible. He chooses everything for his character based upon effectiveness with no concern for what possible justification might be needed (when I get involved and try to finagle things and provide options that make his character make sense for the setting and some kind of cohesive backstory, he listens only as much as is required to get his option justified or manipulated until it fits and then promptly forgets about it when the game starts). No, they're not "rollplayers." They're just roleplayers that don't want to speak with a Scottish brogue or whatever. It's okay if they don't entertain you as much as the guy who has a long backstory and puts on a Scottish brogue. But to call them anything other than the roleplayers they are is simply wrong and divisive. "Talking" is not roleplaying. "Talking" is communicating. Roleplaying is about making decisions your character would also make. That's all it is. Nothing else to see here. If someone's playing a fighter that's facing down a dangerous ogre and that player chooses to take an action his character would reasonably make given context, that player is roleplaying. I'd be willing to bet that your friend would do plenty of in-character interaction and engage in character development in one of my games simply based on my approach. I'm inferring (correct me if I'm wrong) that you try to get the players to *build* the game into one that they enjoy by specifically inserting their desires into the game. Your goal seems to be creating a situation where everyone enjoys themselves consistently without ever experiences any doldrums This bit I quoted here is correct, but the rest of it is not correct. I can do everything you can do in your game except block my players.

This thread just depresses me about how people believe that their way is the correct way. All this thread does is probably make people who were thinking of trying to GM just not try. I know that being told that if I don't do X in a specific manner in my game just wants me to close down my games and apologize to my players for wasting their time even when they have told me repeatedly that they are having fun and return every week. According to the various discussions, I'm blocking my players and restricting their choices so I'm a bad GM and just need to shut my games down. Maybe new gm's are reading this thread and because of this discussion, they feel they shouldn't run a game. That would explain why there are so few GM's in comparison to players overall. Just sighing and tossing in my plug nickel that is worth about about 2 cents.

Nah. This thread falls under the too long didn't read category. I read what you said Metro, but I stopped reading the others long~ ago. I have my way, and it works for my players. It won't work for other people, so you are right about that.

Metroknight said: According to the various discussions, I'm blocking my players and restricting their choices so I'm a bad GM and just need to shut my games down. As much as Iserith and I are going at each others throats (I'm actually enjoying it intensely because I've yet to find such a strong, erudite, and eloquent proponent of the "Yes, and..." philosophy of GMing), both of us have pretty much agreed outright that neither set up is better and the only "best" method is the one that works for your group(s). There are going to be players that prefer one approach or the next (both evidenced by Iserith and I having numerous experiences with campaigns where the players have left completely satisfied), but it's not like we're trying to determine which is the objective *best*. Most of our discussion has been focused upon exactly *how* different out styles are and the comparative strengths and weaknesses of the different styles. There's isn't a style perfect for every group/player (hell, I know that I wouldn't wanted to have run with a game by Gary Gygax because he adhered to the old school notion of GM v. Player, which, btw Iserith, is what I referring to about GM bias towards player survival; pretty much *every* 1e GM I have *ever* dealt with designed a surprisingly large number of adventures with the express intent of killing or mutilating characters in interesting and unique ways). The most that I would recommend, if you have only ever used a single style, is to experiment a bit and draw from other styles to refine their own. While I'm sure Iserith would disagree, I *have* taken elements of the "Yes, and..." approach and integrated it into my approach based upon the things about it I found worked well. If you have only ever used a single style of GMing, you're going to stagnate (at least as far as I see it).

Metroknight writes: This thread just depresses me about how people believe that their way is the correct way. That's unfortunate because I don't think either side of the argument is saying that at all. All this thread does is probably make people who were thinking of trying to GM just not try. I know that being told that if I don't do X in a specific manner in my game just wants me to close down my games and apologize to my players for wasting their time even when they have told me repeatedly that they are having fun and return every week. I'm pretty sure both sides of the argument are saying that any approach is valid with player buy-in. According to the various discussions, I'm blocking my players and restricting their choices so I'm a bad GM and just need to shut my games down. Not according to any discussions I've read. As for blocking, yes, you may be doing that. The definition is up-thread. Whether or not you and your player care about that is a different matter altogether. Maybe new gm's are reading this thread and because of this discussion, they feel they shouldn't run a game. Or maybe they're reading it and learning from it. That would explain why there are so few GM's in comparison to players overall. Of course. It could only be this thread that did it. Mystery solved!

Michael G. said: Nah. This thread falls under the too long didn't read category. I read what you said Metro, but I stopped reading the others long~ ago. I have my way, and it works for my players. It won't work for other people, so you are right about that. Thank you. I'm just an old school GM that feels that each game is based on the GM's view of their game and they have to set the limits of the game just like a parent has to set limits for their children and tell them no or a maybe. (a short rant in general) If a GM has no say for the game setting they envisioned then why is there a GM? I personally would love to see how a game would run with no GM. Picture this, everyone playing the race and class with the stats they choose (why not as there is no GM to say otherwise because that would be blocking the players creativity). Now they decide to go adventuring but why go adventuring since everyone would know what is in the dungeon (no GM to keep the secrets of what is in the dungeon because that could be considered blocking a players choice of what they should take with them or adjust their character to be optimized for the dungeon). Oh by the way for those that might take what I said the wrong way, I was being sarcastic and flippant in general in the last paragraph so just ignore it as it was not meant as a personal attack.

Kitru said: Metroknight said: According to the various discussions, I'm blocking my players and restricting their choices so I'm a bad GM and just need to shut my games down. As much as Iserith and I are going at each others throats (I'm actually enjoying it intensely because I've yet to find such a strong, erudite, and eloquent proponent of the "Yes, and..." philosophy of GMing), both of us have pretty much agreed outright that neither set up is better and the only "best" method is the one that works for your group(s). There are going to be players that prefer one approach or the next (both evidenced by Iserith and I having numerous experiences with campaigns where the players have left completely satisfied), but it's not like we're trying to determine which is the objective *best*. Most of our discussion has been focused upon exactly *how* different out styles are and the comparative strengths and weaknesses of the different styles. There's isn't a style perfect for every group/player (hell, I know that I wouldn't wanted to have run with a game by Gary Gygax because he adhered to the old school notion of GM v. Player, which, btw Iserith, is what I referring to about GM bias towards player survival; pretty much *every* 1e GM I have *ever* dealt with designed a surprisingly large number of adventures with the express intent of killing or mutilating characters in interesting and unique ways). The most that I would recommend, if you have only ever used a single style, is to experiment a bit and draw from other styles to refine their own. While I'm sure Iserith would disagree, I *have* taken elements of the "Yes, and..." approach and integrated it into my approach based upon the things about it I found worked well. If you have only ever used a single style of GMing, you're going to stagnate (at least as far as I see it). Agreed, and thanks for the kind words. There is no way to gauge an objective "best." What we can do is debate the points of each other's styles to find flaws in our own argument or approach. As long as the debaters are acting in good faith and with the principle of charity, then there's no reason to assume the worst. I don't disagree that you know something about "Yes, and..." I'm just trying to give you the whole picture! And to demonstrate my good will, you're more than welcome to join a game next time I run one. Optimize all you like, "yes, and..." all you like. It'll be a blast.

Iserith said: Knowing a DC you need to hit at a given level, for example, is used by players to judge the potential efficacy of their actions in the context of he game. If they have to also guess whether their DM will give them a bonus or a penalty based on the perceived quality of their ideas or acting ability, or wonder whether the DM is just pulling DCs out of thin air, then that decision-making is potentially muddled. Actually, players shouldn't have a specific knowledge about the DC of a specific action because the DC is based upon the level of the skill check as assigned by the GM. If you're navigating a forest at level 1, the DC will be a given value and should *remain* that value when you're navigating it 3 levels later after tackling the goblin problem from one kingdom over. I also wouldn't recommend that the GM let players know, without first interacting with it or checking beforehand, what *kind* of difficulty it is (which is, yet again, another case of GM arbitration; yes, it's got guidelines, but those are entirely subjective, just like the GM's Best Friend rule). RPGs are an improvised collaboration in a framework of rule and mechanics for conflict resolution. These games therefore&nbsp; excel when the group employs the principles of improvisation and collaborative roleplay. I am *entirely* in agreement that tabletop RPGs are a form of improvised collaboration within a given framework for adjudication of dramatic success/failure events, but I disagree a *bit* with the point you're making here. I fully agree that improvisation and collaboration are excellent tools for making a game enjoyable for everyone. I believe that it's *also* valuable for a GM to create a solid construct of the game world for the players to behave within, to use mechanisms to specifically encourage players to take certain actions, and feel free to use their own judgment and authority as the GM to control or influence the content of the game *in a limited fashion* (I feel that last part needs to be heavily emphasized; I've been in steamrolled games it isn't enjoyable in the least; the secret is *moderation* in doing so). Does it happen at yours? It's happened a couple times over the course of years, which is why I brought it up. It's in that fuzzy space of "blocking" since it's an emotional reaction. Did I&nbsp; say&nbsp; one style was better than the other? I think not. In fact, I think said many times and in different ways that any approach will work given player buy-in. I&nbsp; prefer&nbsp; one over the other, certainly. I was saying that more for the benefit for anyone reading our discussions. We've done a pretty good job of making both style seem like the only one that we would ever want someone to use. It's important that there be the regular reminder, of a sort, that these are purely personal assessments and preferences rather than attempts to arbitrarily assign superiority. I know from experience that "Yes, and..." works for all kinds of campaigns and all kinds of games because RPGs are, in fact, based on improvisation. You want deep? Play a game where nobody blocks anyone else and the characters develop in the face of continuing conflict and drama over the long-term. I have and, in my experience, it didn't work out as well as those where the GM had more active involvement. Our experiences are never going to be the same and are, quite possibly, heavily impacted by our personal preferences and personality as well. I will only ever use a pure "Yes, and..." philosophy for short games because, from what I've been able to tell, those are what they're good for. Ah, that answered my questions above. I would just have to learn what you consider quality to win your game. Easy enough. You'd have a pretty hard time figuring out exactly what I think a rewardable action is. I've had players running with me for 5 years that still can't manage to reliably figure out what I'm looking for. They've got a better feel for it after 5 years, but they're still a long way from being able to game me in any appreciable way. I really do think you *drastically* overestimate your own abilities to manipulate the GM, especially if said GM were me. It's not the role of the GM to make everyone happy and entertained. It's everyone's role to do that. My belief is, and always has been, that the GM is the arbiter of the group. It's something of a position of authority and responsibility, beyond just making rules judgments. In addition to running the game itself, it's the GM's job to police player behavior (i.e. someone is doing things that annoy and/or detract from the fun of someone else, whether intentional or unintentional), control the game's flow (i.e. making sure players stay on topic and limit their distraction with things outside the game), etc. While everyone *should* do as much as they can to help out, it's not *their job* (since some people don't want to tell someone to stop pissing them off for various reasons or are oblivious to such behaviors). It's the GM's job to pay attention and take action if needed, as I see it. It's players' job to have fun. It's the GM's job to make sure that *everyone* have fun. It's just, to me, boring and contentious as we try to guess which idea the GM imagines meets his threshold for sufficient quality to get on with the game already. I've yet to have a game that actually slows down more than is dramatically appropriate when I "return the ball" to them, especially considering the fact that I provide a number of options for refining the idea. Pretty much *always* the player either makes a decision immediately or passes the turn on to the next player in line to buy themselves a bit of thinking time as they mull over the options. It doesn't slow down the game in the least, in my experience, nor is it boring and contentious unless you're *specifically* trying to game the GM and get upset when it doesn't take rather than trying to come up with an agreeable idea. Right, they're learning to play YOU, not THE GAME. Thanks for making my point for me. I don't think that's a good approach, but if your players and you like it, keep on doing it. Except that it's not just *me*. The group as a whole is generating the heuristic. Yes, I'm the *arbiter* of it, but the penalties and benefits aren't simply constructs entirely within my mind. They're constructs within the mind of the group as a whole. When I provide the benefit or penalty, the rest of the group is almost always expecting it before I even say it. When someone comes up with a novel solution that tackles the problem in and interesting and very effective way, the rest of the group agrees that it's a good idea. When it's a bad idea, the rest of the group is generally performing a facepalm or two. There are a few occasions where the rest of the group is surprised that it was a +2 or -2 but they're few and far between (and my group trusts me implicitly to make these calls appropriately). You're still talking as if "players that rollplay by character optimizing, memorizing rules, and choosing optimal paths" aren't roleplaying. This is not true. No, I'm not. There is a difference between "roleplaying" and "rollplaying". They are not mutually exclusive motivations or behaviors. They can exist in different quantities independently within different players. You can be a "rollplayer" *and* a "roleplay" or one or the other (or neither, but, at that point, I'd wonder why you're playing). No, they're not "rollplayers." They're just roleplayers that don't want to speak with a Scottish brogue or whatever. I don't think you're understanding the people I'm talking about. There are people that have *no interest whatsoever* in seeing their character as anything other than numbers on a character sheet. The character is a toy, not an actual character. These are people that are *explicitly* only interested in the game as a game of numbers rather than a game of interactions. To them, it's not a game of collaborative storytelling; it's a wargame where they play a single character. They're not adopting a role. They're not in the world. They're just there to see big numbers and punch things with 'em. They're *not* roleplaying because it's not a role. It's numbers, and they're just there to play with the rolls. I'm pretty sure that some of them would even be a bit confused if anyone said they were "roleplaying" instead of simply "gaming". I'd be willing to bet that your friend would do plenty of in-character interaction and engage in character development in one of my games simply based on my approach. I can pretty much guarantee you wouldn't. I've talked with him and collaborated with him in all kinds of environments. He's just not interested in getting into character in *any* sense of the phrase. He's disconnected from it and, as far as he cares, is simply something that he's telling to do stuff to draw some amusement from. He could be playing a more complex version of craps or monopoly for all he cares. He enjoys the game for the numerical and strategic/tactical complexity, not as an exercise in characterization. This bit I quoted here is correct, but the rest of it is not correct. I can do everything you can do in your game except block my players. Which is pretty much you trying to say "anything you can do, I can do better". There are separate *strengths* to the styles. Just because you don't block your players and *only* allow the dice to arbitrate good or bad ideas (which perturbs me since the dice are the arbitration of success or failure, not whether certain actions should have higher success or failure rates) doesn't mean you're as capable of controlling tension or molding the game specifically as I am. In fact, it means you're specifically *less* capable because you've sacrificed control as a GM (since, as you've stated, you refuse to use any GM influence upon success/failure so it's *entirely* without any kind of human influence in the success/failure probability). The strength of my philosophy is that, as GM, I have greater control over the flow, pacing, and state of the game. Some players chafe under it, many players *flower* under it, and some GMs can completely screw the pooch by attempting to do the same. Pretty much, I can do everything you can with the *option* to block my players when it's appropriate, which gives me more control over the game, which can itself be used to improve or detract from the game. Rather than dispersing the responsibility or absolving the GM of their involvement, I capitalize on the fact that my players expect me to run the game and use that fact to make the game *better*. Some GMs may not like taking the responsibility upon themselves. Others might not and that's just dandy.

Metroknight said: I personally would love to see how a game would run with no GM. Picture this, everyone playing the race and class with the stats they choose (why not as there is no GM to say otherwise because that would be blocking the players creativity). Actually, there's a really interesting way to implement this. It's actually in the DMG2, iirc. It's called a Dungeon Deck. Instead of planning an adventure beforehand, everyone puts together a large list of possible rooms, a list of various possible encounters to populate said rooms, and, finally, a list of possible loot options in each room, with all three lists completely separate. You progress from random room/combat to random room/combat, placing the monsters whenever the room/combat is drawn and the entire party plays the opposing force in whatever is decided the appropriate manner. The players get to experience the joy of progressing through a dungeon they don't know, gathering loots and interesting stories, and they don't need a GM to do it.

Metroknight said: Michael G. said: Nah. This thread falls under the too long didn't read category. I read what you said Metro, but I stopped reading the others long~ ago. I have my way, and it works for my players. It won't work for other people, so you are right about that. Thank you. I'm just an old school GM that feels that each game is based on the GM's view of their game and they have to set the limits of the game just like a parent has to set limits for their children and tell them no or a maybe. (a short rant in general) If a GM has no say for the game setting they envisioned then why is there a GM? I personally would love to see how a game would run with no GM. Picture this, everyone playing the race and class with the stats they choose (why not as there is no GM to say otherwise because that would be blocking the players creativity). Now they decide to go adventuring but why go adventuring since everyone would know what is in the dungeon (no GM to keep the secrets of what is in the dungeon because that could be considered blocking a players choice of what they should take with them or adjust their character to be optimized for the dungeon). Oh by the way for those that might take what I said the wrong way, I was being sarcastic and flippant in general in the last paragraph so just ignore it as it was not meant as a personal attack. I'm not sure my friends would appreciate it if they knew I thought of them as children that need to be disciplined while we're spending time together playing a game. I'd also like to ask you who exactly in this discussion is saying that the GM has no say for the game setting they envision. In addition, I'd like to point you to any number of GM-less RPGs available these days e.g. Fiasco. Just Google up "GM-less Games" and there's a ton of them. They're fun and don't require a GM at all. As well, random dungeons roll charts generators have been around since the 70s and don't really require a DM at all. You're also not understanding what blocking means. If you'd like me to explain it further in the context of what you said above, I can. That is, presuming you're interested in honest discourse. I'll await your reply and devote some time tomorrow morning to responding to Kitru's last.

That is nice to hear about the DMG2. Reminds me of freeform games I've been in.

Michael G. nailed it... I opened this thread, my eyes glazed over, and the next thing I knew it was an hour later. Either I was kidnapped by aliens who then erased my memory or else I actually tried to follow this discussion, I'm not sure which. Metroknight is right, I don't know why some of you people even bother with a GM. You should just read the adventure, decide how you character would deal with it, adjust your character sheet accordingly, then move on to the next. Vive la différence!

I apologize for expressing my pov on how I view my style of GMing since I'm not understanding what this discussion is about and will stay silent in thread. I will not interrupt your discussion anymore.

Folks, allow other people their opinions on how to GM and their ideas of what gaming is. It is a Good Idea to avoid personally directed statements such as "you" whenever possible as that will often degenerate into arguments. Instead, talk about your own experiences and ideas rather than attacking, intentionally or not, other peoples ideas. Failure to do this will result in topics like this being shut down. - Gauss

Gauss beat me to it. I was going to say that some way up the top a question was asked by the original poster. Does anyone else remember what that was? I answered that in good faith. It was a long post I grant you, but I had a few points to support my views. Somewhere after that it was hijacked. Well meaning debate perhaps, but not the intended result of a question from a player or dm that was just looking, I suspect, for a few people of like mind, or perhaps to try and understand another point of view on playing the game. good ol' Internet : )

You're still talking as if "players that rollplay by character optimizing, memorizing rules, and choosing optimal paths" aren't roleplaying. This is not true.No, I'm not. There is a difference between "roleplaying" and "rollplaying". They are not mutually exclusive motivations or behaviors. They can exist in different quantities independently within different players. You can be a "rollplayer" *and* a "roleplay" or one or the other (or neither, but, at that point, I'd wonder why you're playing). No, they're not "rollplayers." They're just&nbsp; roleplayers&nbsp; that don't want to speak with a Scottish brogue or whatever. No, they're not "rollplayers." They're just&nbsp; roleplayers&nbsp; that don't want to speak with a Scottish brogue or whatever.I don't think you're understanding the people I'm talking about. There are people that have *no interest whatsoever* in seeing their character as anything other than numbers on a character sheet. The character is a toy, not an actual character. These are people that are *explicitly* only interested in the game as a game of numbers rather than a game of interactions. To them, it's not a game of collaborative storytelling; it's a wargame where they play a single character. They're not adopting a role. They're not in the world. They're just there to see big numbers and punch things with 'em. They're *not* roleplaying because it's not a role. It's numbers, and they're just there to play with the rolls. I'm pretty sure that some of them would even be a bit confused if anyone said they were "roleplaying" instead of simply "gaming". I just want to say that there is no such thing as rollplayers, "rollplayers" are Call of Duty players, not any form of RPG players. There are just roleplayers who have been demoralized by the stigma of No, and. I use to mostly care about combat, because in my experience No, and was the majority of what players and DMs do because what my or another players ideas, didnt fit into the stigma of their games we were ridiculed. It makes a player become more quiet and eventually just care about combat more than the story. When I was introduced to better GMs who included everyone in the process i started branching out more. Then once I was introduced to Yes, and games i became fully involved in most aspects of the game.&nbsp; For me combat was more fun because players and DMs couldnt block, it allowed me to do whatever it is I wanted. During story telling if I wanted to do something that didnt appease the GM you usually got penalized. Oh you wanted to do this, no roll just orcs jumped you are you are alone since you were trying to do something that didnt fit in my little bubble. Its not a fun way to play games, there is always going to be that one or two players that continue to play in those types of games because they still enjoy the game and enjoy the storytelling but adds the minimal amount of story telling into the game due to being afraid of being blocked.&nbsp; With the Yes, and system those players who love roleplaying actually come out of their shells and thrive. The only people i can see not liking a Yes, and system are the egotistical players and GMs who want everything to be about them. GMs who crave the power dont like Yes, and because all they care about is blocking and killing the players off, or just dont like to improvise at all and wants everything structured which doesnt allow players to be there character because not all characters will fit in that cookie cutter dungeon you put together. Players that dont like Yes, and is because they dont enjoy other players expressing themselves and how they would react to a situation thinking its dumb to do something like that. Yes, and roots out the bullys and some players enjoy being that bully. Also I enjoy optimizing the hell out of my character, its just something i enjoy, be it the best healer, the best tank, or the best DPS. I enjoy having my character be the best at what it does, that doesnt take away that I love stories, it just usually spices up combat more. We all play games that have the most boring combat systems in the world just to hear that amazing story, take Star Wars Knights of The Old Republic, boring ass combat system, most RPGs are, amazing story. That is heart of all roleplayers, we care about great stories, so again to answer kitru and OP, there is no such thing as Rollplayers, we all care about playing out an amazing story but No, and has killed their love for acting out their characters during storytelling and took a back seat to listen to the story instead and engage again once combat is active. If combat was all they cared about then they would play games that have no story. In my experience Yes, and campaigns bring for an interesting outcome, you can run the same campaign over and over and you will never end up with the same ending. Yes, and brings the most open ended storytelling which lets new and old players get into a very story driven experience. Yes, and allows for characters to team up with NPCs you would never think of them teaming up with. Example, A man killed your parents, in a normal game you kill that guy end of story, in Yes, and, you join forces with this guy because the player says the man was forced to kill your parents or his family would be killed, you then kill the real person responsible for your parents death and many more families. Yes, and evolves normal stories and turns them into epic movies. Yes, and essentially takes away the normal blocking power DMs have and allows the players to engulf themselves into the story and let them take it wherever they want.&nbsp; Some of the best GMs around say that the key to GMing is improve and the key to improve is Yes, and.&nbsp; Also Gauss, all my yous are only referring to players it refers to, not anyone here since I have no experience with most of these players just you referring to the player im describing.&nbsp;

I didn't read the entire thread, but the way the original poster described roll-playing is not what the term means to me. To me roll-play refers to players that don't describe what their character is doing and just say things like "I attack" *rolls to hit*, "I dodge" *rolls to dodge*, "I persuade" *rolls relevant skill*.&nbsp; They just say what they want to do in the most basic way possible and wait for the GM to describe what happens.&nbsp; In one game I was a player in, someone actually said "I just do whatever works *rolls high skill*".&nbsp; Role-players will follow up their actions with a little more detail, it does not take much to make the scenes more interesting than just rolling dice.&nbsp; Rather than just saying "I intimidate him into stepping aside" they will say something like "Look here Mr Guardsmen, you can get out of our path or my large friend here *motions to the big half-orc* will demonstrate why they call him The Butcher".&nbsp; Then roll to see if the Guard is intimidated or not. I prefer role-players in my games.

Kitru, would you like to take our discussion to PM? While what we're discussing is perfectly on-topic with cogent arguments presented in a polite if firm tone according to standard practices, the Roll20 community does not appear to enjoy spirited, well-meaning debate. It appears to be taken personally by some, which I suppose is quite telling. (See all non-productive posts complaining about our discussion rather than adding to it.) Rather then test and debate each other's viewpoints to produce understanding, we're being admonished, it seems, to simply post an opinion and move along, and not to respond to those who snipe and troll at the points being made, even if it seems said people (and likely their poor players) are in desperate need of good, well-meaning advice. That's truly a shame because this is a good community that could do with solid advice for its new and experienced GMs who, if the other posts on this site are to be believed, often have a problem with player retention and the like. Problems that could be alleviated by following yours or my advice in this very thread. Problems that I, and likely you, just don't have. So shall we take whatever experience and wisdom we have to share with the community to private message where none will benefit except you and me?

just like to point out, Iserith, that you have a tendency to preach. Its not beneficial, regardless of the content of what you are trying to preach, because you come across as someone who thinks of himself as superior and and above the masses. you come across conceited and high handed, as if attempting to bully others into accepting that your way is indeed the best way to play, and that while others might like playing differently, they should understand that there is a better way and as a logical step from that to admit that yes, even though they might prefer a different playstyle, that your way is indeed that best way. your last post was a perfect example of that. intimating that you are someone of special note, a virtual savant of running a game and inherently the best at doing so, and consider the rest of the community to be nothing more than flawed and inadequate in their own roles as gamemaster of their chosen system, and that by not preaching to us, we will in fact be missing out.&nbsp; Well, sir, you are wrong. while there may be some of us who would benefit from such a discussion, you are directly intimating that only such a discussion involving you would be of any benefit. now, if you were truly attempting to educate anyone about anything, instead of appearing to be using the biggest words and the longest posts with the most arguments in it to get attention for your soapbox, I would perhaps be more inclined to be lenient in my opinion. However, your constant belittling of the community and assumptions that you stand a step above even the 'experienced GM's' prevents my more forgiving side from doing so. all that said, I'm not attacking your ideals at all. I happen to agree with 90% of what you say here, because I can follow and understand your reasoning. You could present it a far more reader friendly way, but not everyone is actually able to remove themselves from an argument they are invested in. (call it a debate all you want, I know the difference - and no, arguments do not have to be hostile, but a friendly argument isn't the same as a debate). here I am refering to your high-handed use of terms outside the purview of most game masters. Most notably, your usage of the terms "yes and" as well as "No but".&nbsp; Most game masters would have no idea what you are talking about, and you provide only the barest of references to it as a method outside of your argument, with no citations to direct anybody to your sources to pull facts for themselves at all. Now, I know that this thread is most likely one that hits close to home. you've had bad DM's before. you answer to that seems to have been to try and cut the DM out of as much of the game as possible, both for yourself as a DM and when you game, I suspect - though the way you come across, I find it hard to see you accepting anyone else as a DM worthy of your talents as a player.&nbsp; I just hope you actually can contribute to the community - you are a well spoken, knowledgeable individual with many good points to present. I have enjoyed reading, if not agreeing with, your statements throughout the thread, and can only hope that there are others out there that have read this and perhaps given some thought to what you have said without taking offence as to how it was sometimes presented.&nbsp; Thats all I have to say on the matter, and I will not be adding anything to this statement at a later date. I have said my piece not in the hopes of sparking a war, but to point out a few perceptions that might be held by those who read this thread in the hopes that it can be remedied. If not, Well, My piece has been said and I will leave it at that.

Also, good post, Eric R. I'm glad to see something from the player's perspective. GMs should take heed of your experience! A lot of GMs don't even know they're often doing the very things that make what they call "roleplaying" much much harder and more discouraging for the players. Then they wonder why their players only come alive during combat scenes where they can't easily be blocked by controlling GMs or other players.

Michael H. wrote:&nbsp; just like to point out, Iserith, that you have a tendency to preach. Its not beneficial, regardless of the content of what you are trying to preach, because you come across as someone who thinks of himself as superior and and above the masses. you come across conceited and high handed, as if attempting to bully others into accepting that your way is indeed the best way to play, and that while others might like playing differently, they should understand that there is a better way and as a logical step from that to admit that yes, even though they might prefer a different playstyle, that your way is indeed that best way. I can't control the tone you read into my words. I suggest you consider the principle of charity that I linked above. It makes online discussions much easier. your last post was a perfect example of that. intimating that you are someone of special note, a virtual savant of running a game and inherently the best at doing so, and consider the rest of the community to be nothing more than flawed and inadequate in their own roles as gamemaster of their chosen system, and that by not preaching to us, we will in fact be missing out.&nbsp; That's not what I intimated at all. I was quite clear: Kitru and I are having an intelligent debate while some are taking dishonest swipes at it from the sidelines and adding nothing. Kitru and I are experienced GMs with knowledge to share. More people are reading this thread than posting in it. Why are some people trying to shut down a debate others may benefit from? And if it's such a blow to the community to have two GMs discussing their approaches in a cogent manner in public, we can just take it to PM. I'm leaving that option to Kitru and am holding off on responding to his last until he's told me what he wants to do. while there may be some of us who would benefit from such a discussion, you are directly intimating that only such a discussion involving you would be of any benefit. now, if you were truly attempting to educate anyone about anything, instead of appearing to be using the biggest words and the longest posts with the most arguments in it to get attention for your soapbox, I would perhaps be more inclined to be lenient in my opinion. However, your constant belittling of the community and assumptions that you stand a step above even the 'experienced GM's' prevents my more forgiving side from doing so. That's also not what I'm intimating. That's the tone you're reading into my words for your own personal reasons. all that said, I'm not attacking your ideals at all. I happen to agree with 90% of what you say here, because I can follow and understand your reasoning. You could present it a far more reader friendly way, but not everyone is actually able to remove themselves from an argument they are invested in. (call it a debate all you want, I know the difference - and no, arguments do not have to be hostile, but a friendly argument isn't the same as a debate). It's a debate, not an argument, and it's friendly. Kitru agreed with that above. I even invited him to one of my games. You're invited, too, if you like. We can play together instead of talking about playing. I can show you instead of tell you. here I am refering to your high-handed use of terms outside the purview of most game masters. Most notably, your usage of the terms "yes and" as well as "No but".&nbsp; Most game masters would have no idea what you are talking about, and you provide only the barest of references to it as a method outside of your argument, with no citations to direct anybody to your sources to pull facts for themselves at all. It's not high-handed to use words and concepts other people might not know because I can't know if other people do or do not know something. (How could I?) If someone wants to know more, they can ask . Or use this new-fangled thing called "Google." Would you like me to elaborate further and provide references? Now, I know that this thread is most likely one that hits close to home. you've had bad DM's before. you answer to that seems to have been to try and cut the DM out of as much of the game as possible, both for yourself as a DM and when you game, I suspect - though the way you come across, I find it hard to see you accepting anyone else as a DM worthy of your talents as a player.&nbsp; "Cutting the DM out" is not my proposed solution in any way, shape, or form. Do I suggest the DM stop putting his thumb on the scale or blocking his players in order to facilitate the "roleplaying" that DMs purportedly want to see in their games? Yes, I do. But the DM is as vital a part of the game as any of the players at the table. I just hope you actually can contribute to the community - you are a well spoken, knowledgeable individual with many good points to present. I have enjoyed reading, if not agreeing with, your statements throughout the thread, and can only hope that there are others out there that have read this and perhaps given some thought to what you have said without taking offence as to how it was sometimes presented.&nbsp; Thank you, and I hope so too.

Micheal H., Gauss said to not attack people and that seems exactly what you are doing. That should have been a PM, no reason to attack him just because you do not agree with him.

0.o Holy heck?!? What happened to my thread?! What's all this garbage about blocking, yes and, no but and all this jazz???? I just wanted to know what people liked to do when they play and how they do it. I was also curious about how people handle alignment. 0.o Someone said (my eyes glazed over in the word spam) this this argument was on topic as the person who MADE the topic I'm gonna have to say... ummm no? If a Mod sees this please feel free to shut it down, I'm almost sorry I asked if this was gonna be the end result.&nbsp;

Barring a mod shutting this down, Getting back on topic: More specifically good evil. Recently I had a discussion with another player and we were trying to find out what actions make someone evil. The example that came up the most (and unfortunately to his disadvantage because he mostly plays fighters and has close to 0 exp with magic) &nbsp;was summon monsters. Now a Neutral wizard can summon NG and NE as well as True N. The summon will obey the summoner no matter what. With that said he called me out for showing him a NE centipede saying I was evil for summoning it, I pointed out that I used such a creature to save lives, and by his definition if whatever I summon makes me that summons alignment (this debate started with necromancers and undead) then what would happen if I summoned a Good aligned monster and made it do something evil like eat a innocent peasant? We debated for a long time on this and was wondering since it pertained to alighments what other people thought?

To the first part, you question was about roll and role, to what people said either there was such a thing or there wasnt, and explained their reasoning.&nbsp; To the second part. Summed creatures are fake creatures. They dont have alignment, they only do what their master commands be it a good or evil person that summons them. This is a not true with druid summons though. Druid summons have reaction to not given any actions and will even attack their own people sometimes. This is due to the beast being an animal. But this still does not make the person who summons them, nor the beast evil or good in any sense. The summoner is just doing whatever it is they need to do. The beast is just being a beast and acting how it would in the wild. I dont think alignment is really needed. We all dont have big signs over our heads that say neutral good, chaotic evil, and so on. People do whatever it is they think is right. Everyone has a different view of what is right. Did you talk to that lawful evil wizard? Did you know that his family was slaughtered because they would not give up their town to the other city. So this wizard is taking it into his own hands to destroy that town and get revenge. Sounds similar to a chaotic good character whos kills bandits because they stole food, we dont talk to the bandit who actually use to own the farm and had it taken by someone else and is starving to death...Alignment is perception its not real and doesnt really work.&nbsp;

I understand the first part, but it devolved rather quickly into a large scale argument, which like&nbsp; Metroknight &nbsp;said was just depressing. For the second part I couldn't agree more! During our debate he was confused when I mentioned in passing that a mindless undead can't be evil since it has no int score (less then an anima) it couldn't possibly be. He then asked me why zombies ate people if no one told them to. I replied with "they don't" and showed him the Monster manual zombie, he was even more confused. Ps: that's the reason why I removed good/evil from my game and replaced it with selfless and selfish, those terms are far less ambiguous&nbsp;

Alignment in D&amp;D/Pathfinder is a built in component to the game mechanics. I am sure someone could do some work and strip it out for their home game. But alignment does touch upon quite a bit outside players playing their characters. Many more games do not use alignment.

ya, as&nbsp;Michael H said he left his alignment blank. Which worked I think because as you said sadly good/evil is worked into the d20 system (not all of them but a lot of them) pretty hard so it would take time to strip them out unless you converted them like I did. In&nbsp;Michael H example with his blank alighment he let the GM give it to him based on his actions because to quote directly "No one thinks they are evil"

Fricking love Dresden &lt;3 lol

Jason L. said: We debated for a long time on this and was wondering since it pertained to alighments what other people thought? One of the major concerns is that it depends upon the game. In standard 3/3.5e D&amp;D (and I think it extends into Pathfinder, but I'm not *entirely* sure), Good and Evil are specific constructs in the universe, just like Law and Chaos. It's because of this that Paladins can "detect evil", you can have races/monsters that are *always* a specific alignment, and have spells that have variable effects upon the target based upon their alignment. As such, because of this, behaviors are either *naturally* good (feeding the poor, protecting the innocent, healing, working to minimize evil in the world), *naturally* evil (necromancy, unjustified murder, slavery, torture), or simply unaligned (at least along the moral axis) and performing said acts leaves a spiritual "residue" upon your soul. When a player talks about summoning a good creature to maul a child, the situation is a good character (i.e. takes predominantly good actions in a *very* substantial majority) taking an evil action (since the summoned creature is magically compelled to follow the commands of the summoner so the summoner has primary responsibility). Even if said child were prophesied to become a world-ending wunderkind of evil the very next day, until that child actually behaved in such a way that it *justified* killing them, it would still be an evil act, according the the fundamental laws of the universe. The summoned creature, on the other hand, since it is a creature of *explicit* good (since it's a celestial, i.e. specifically tied to a plane of good), it couldn't take such an action without the direction of the player (it is defined by its good nature and, as such, it couldn't even conceive of taking an evil action) but performing it for the player makes it a bit *less* good (since it's still performing the action, which means it affects it even if it's *less* than what the player would experience), which is how celestial creatures fall to evil or evil creatures rise to goodness (mortal intercession forcing them to change). Now, other settings even within the same system get fuzzy. Eberron was specifically written with weaker alignment laws and virtually no alignment restrictions even though it was originally a 3e campaign setting. Good and evil are more abstract concepts in Eberron, as evidenced by evil clerics being able to use spells with the good keyword and abilities such as detect good/evil being unreliable. For mortals, *intent* has more impact than the action itself (which is how you have a LG church run by a LE character that also took part in a major genocide while still being entirely LG). However, Eberron still exists in a universe where there is explicit good and evil: certain actions are explicitly good, certain actions are explicitly evil. This is evidenced by the fact that there are some creatures that *cannot* alter their fundamental nature which is specifically *tied* to their alignment. A rakshasa cannot turn good because it is an evil creature and is defined by that alignment. If it *were* to change its alignment somehow, it would become *something completely different*. This is what makes mortals different: they are capable of choosing their own actions, even though those actions fall within the purview of a specific universal interpretation of the terms "good" and "evil". When you move on to other systems, things get even *fuzzier*. You can get into systems that are pretty much alignment agnostic, like 4e D&amp;D. As far as 4e D&amp;D is concerned, alignment exists entirely as a roleplaying construct (it's also been simplified such that it's much less ambiguous concerning various actions and intents) with absolutely *minimal* impact upon gameplay (divine class alignment choice and, even then, some GMs don't even do that). 4e really just doesn't care about alignment. As long as you know what your character is in a vague sense, it doesn't really matter what you put on the character sheet. My personal favorite systems are actually those pioneered by White Wolf: the morality (and variants thereof) systems. The values of the culture/race you belong to determines what you alignment construct is. Rather than applying the same moral compass to *everyone*, different creatures have different conceptions of what moral behavior is. As such, there isn't good or evil so much as moral or immoral and, while we might view creatures outside of our own moral structure as "evil" or "immoral", in their own moral structure, they're completely moral. Alignment isn't governed by universal constraints but by societal notions concerning proper and improper behavior and your perception of yourself and others can differ *greatly* if you belong to different morality structures. Only when you're within someone within the same morality structure (i.e. both belong to the same major cultural group) as yourself can you accurately gauge whether that person is moral or immoral. Basically, alignment is *culturally subjective* rather than universally determined. Basically, I find it's most important to find an alignment system that suits your game. If you want alignment to be a specific mechanical construct that governs behavior within a universal constraint (i.e. angels are good, demons are evil, detect evil works), you have to go with an interpretation of alignment that has the definition of *actions* controlled by the universe. If you want to ease up on the universality of alignment and spread it into intent a bit more, you have to ease up on the mechanical impact of it since *intent* is a much fuzzier method of determining alignment. If you don't want alignment to have *any* mechanical impact, you can do it however you want since it doesn't affect anything except for roleplay (and, as such, the rules don't interact with it at all so it's entirely governed by the GM). You can also go even *further* into realms of ever increasing complexity by creating culturally subjective morality if you're so inclined and, even then, you can still ask yourself when you want it to impact any mechanics other than itself as a governor of personal moral sense.