shane wrote:
That's not role play. Thats relying on the player's ability instead of the character's ability to determine the outcome of something. Character's have abilities, skills and knowledge we don't. That's why player's make a d20 roll. The player doesn't run down the hall and try to jump 20' feet to see if his character can do it. The player doesn't pull out the boyscout archery set and try to hit a target at 50' to see if his character can do it. The player doesn't try to scale the side of his house to see of the character can do it. No, the player doesn't. The player rolls a d20. Why should searching for hidden items (or bluffing, negotiating, trying to be diplomatic, etc) be any different? The character, especially if they're a rogue, is certainly much, much better at it, has much more experience doing it, and would know how to do it more effectively. So why have a character effectively do the search instead of the character?
That description most certainly IS roleplay. What you're describing is ROLL play, and I think this is a flawed way of looking at it.
C&C is a game. Games have players. If you roll dice for every single thing that a character does, you then have a simulation, not a game. Last I checked, "Spot" and "Search" don't exist in C&C, nor should they. To some degree, the player in a game has to actually *play* the game, and not rely on game mechanics as an excuse to not have to think their way through a game session.
What's wrong with requiring players to do a little thinking or speaking as their character, rather than "pushing buttons" and rolling dice?
Quite frankly, one of the goals of C&C was to get away from this sort of mentality. Yes, there will always be this dichotomy between player ability and character ability, but it's a role-playing game.
A skilled player and referee can play off each other to account for the actual ability scores of on the character sheet. Bonuses or penalties can be applied to certain rolls, for example. The section in the PHB on how to use the SIEGE engine covers this in detail.
Players should at least *try* to roleplay. Roleplaying means, naturally, to step into the role of the character and speak as if the character were speaking. If they make a mess of things, the astute CK should allow a SIEGE check to mitigate the mess, due to the Charisma stat. HOWEVER, the Charisma stat's existance doesn't replace the player's requirement to actually roleplay.
The same principle applies to Intelligence and Wisdom. As CK, I allow checks against those stats if a player is about to make a character do something intensely stupid or unwise. Otherwise, I let them do as they will. Why? Because it's more fun that way, and the game keeps moving rather than getting bogged down with simulation rolls.
It's *really easy* to handle things this way, provided one can get past the damnable Spot/Search mindset. That crap has poisoned the well.
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Sir Fiffergrund, Lord Marshal of the Castle and Crusade Society.
He Who Hides Behind The Elephant's Back